Replies

The Taliban said they had captured 11 Afghan soldiers, a senior police officer and a district chief in Kandahar, just days after U.S.-led and Afghan forces staged a joint operation there against the guerrillas. Taliban commander Mullah Rahim said the 13 were captured in a raid on Mian Nishin district in the southern region of Kandahar on June 16, 2005. (Reuters Graphic)

Attacks Raise Fears of Taliban, al-Qaida

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR Afghanistan - Three rockets smashed into this southern Afghan city early Sunday, jolting residents but causing no casualties, the latest in a string of attacks across the south that have raised fears that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaida allies are regrouping.

One of the rockets hit an empty lot near the former home of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar which now houses U.S. special forces troops, said Gen. Salim Khan, the deputy police chief. The other two hit elsewhere in the city.

Khan blamed Taliban rebels for the attack, which occurred at about 3 a.m.

"The one rocket hit right next to Mullah Omar's home, and two other rockets hit fields in Kandahar city," said Khan. "The Taliban did this. Nobody else would do such a thing."

U.S. troops cordoned off the area next to Mullah Omar's old home, keeping residents and journalists a good distance away.

Meanwhile, a purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for an ambush of a police convoy in southern Afghanistan, and said insurgents had killed a district police chief after taking him captive. Mullah Latif Hakimi said the man was killed for collaborating with the U.S.

Ten other officers taken captive in the ambush on Thursday were still alive, he said.

Hakimi often calls news organizations to claim responsibility for attacks on behalf of the Taliban. His information has sometimes proven untrue or exaggerated, and his exact tie to the group's leadership is unclear.

In other violence, rebels attacked a government office Saturday in Zabul province's Daychopan district and an ensuing two-hour gunbattle left four insurgents dead, said provincial spokesman Ali Khail. The attackers fled after U.S. helicopters arrived to back up the Afghan troops on the ground, he said.

On Friday, rebels detonated a bomb hidden next to a road in nearby Helmand province as a government vehicle was passing, said Mohammed Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. A soldier in the vehicle was killed, he said.

In Kandahar province's Shah Wali Kot district, fighting Friday between Afghan soldiers and Taliban rebels left two insurgents dead, local army commander Gen. Muslim Amid said.

Attacks across the country have increased since March, when snow melted on mountain passes used by the insurgents. About 240 suspected rebels and 29 U.S. troops have been killed in the recent violence, according to Afghan and U.S. officials.

U.S. troops press offensive in western Iraq

19 Jun 2005 07:29:06 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Peter Graff

KARABILA, Iraq, June 19 (Reuters) - U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi forces and U.S. and British aircraft, pushed into the northern section of a town near the Syrian border which they say has become a stronghold for foreign fighters.

Karabila, a near deserted town that was once home to 60,000 people, and other areas around the city of Qaim, are the focus of Operation Spear, one of two offensives launched in three days in the western desert against Sunni Arab rebels fighting the U.S. presence and new, Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

Along with Operation Dagger, closer to the capital near Tharthar lake, the high-profile assaults took place as U.S. President George W. Bush, absorbing new criticism of his strategy in Iraq, asked Americans to show patience on what he called a "central front in the war on terror".

U.S. aircraft and helicopters were in action overnight. The U.S. military said Britain's air force has also taken part.

A hundred or so people waving white flags walked out from northern areas of Karabila at dawn on Sunday after loudspeaker warnings that Marines were about to seize the district.

Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Mundy, whose men found what they called a car bomb factory, Iraqi hostages and a torture house for captives on Saturday, told reporters invited to witness the operation that he also expected to find at least six houses in northern Karabila that were bases for foreign militants.

A report by Marine spokesman Captain Jeff Pool said 10 civilians were wounded as a result of guerrillas firing from their homes. He said about 50 insurgents had been killed.

SUNNI ACCUSATION

A leading organisation for Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, once dominant under Saddam Hussein, accused U.S. forces of killing women and children and destroying homes, schools and other civilian buildings around Karabila and Qaim.

"Operation Spear...will break on the rock of Iraqi solidarity," the Muslim Clerics Association said in a statement, reflecting anger at U.S. military tactics.

The chief doctor at the area's main hospital in Qaim, Hamdi al-Alusi, said he had seen 10 bodies and treated 17 wounded. Most of those hurt were women and children, he said.

Iraq's al Qaeda group, led by Jordanian Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, said no insurgents had been killed in the strikes. "They are lying...their bombs fell on the Muslim public," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

U.S. commanders believe Zarqawi may be operating in the Euphrates River valley, cutting through the western desert from the Qaim area towards Baghdad. Although only a small component of the rebel forces, they say, foreigners appear to be responsible for some of the deadliest attacks such as suicide car bombings.

The U.S. military command blames Zarqawi for a surge in violence since the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-dominated government took office in April, since when more than 1,000 Iraqis and some 120 U.S. troops have been killed in rebel attacks.

The insurgents remain elusive, however. U.S. forces mounted a similar offensive, Operation Matador, near Qaim last month.

"It's like hunting birds," said Colonel Steve Davis of the U.S. Marines as he surveyed the ruins of what he said was an insurgent base in Karabila on Saturday. "You shoot a few, the rest fly away. You shoot a few again, the rest fly away again."

BUSH APPEAL

Bush said the U.S. overthrow of Saddam had been followed by Islamist guerrillas coming to Iraq to fight Americans.

"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power," he said in a weekly radio address, after a poll showed 51 percent of voters now thought invading Iraq a bad idea. "But all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror."

At least 1,718 U.S. troops have been killed in 27 months in Iraq.

General William Webster, the U.S. commander for Baghdad, and Brigadier General Jaleel Khalaf, commander of the first Iraqi army brigade given charge of its own section of the city, said a month-long sweep known as Operation Lightning had succeeded in halving the number of car bombings in the capital.

About 1,200 suspects, of whom about 50 were foreigners, had been detained, they told a news conference on Saturday.

However, Webster said the operation would go on, as insurgents remained capable of mounting deadly assaults.

"Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point," Webster said.

Near Tikrit, Saddam's home town north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded nine on Sunday when he drove his car at an army patrol, police said.

(Additional reporting by Majid Hameed in Qaim and Walid Ibrahim, Luke Baker and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad)

A US CH-47 Chinook helicopter flies in Charikar north of Kabul. United States warplanes killed 15 to 20 suspected Taliban rebels in southern Afghanistan in the latest attack in a renewed wave of violence to hit the country, the US military said.(AFP/File/Shah Marai)

U.S. Airstrikes Kill Afghan Militants

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer

Sun Jun 19,10:53 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. warplanes and attack helicopters opened fire on a group of suspected rebels in southern Afghanistan Sunday after the ambush of a coalition convoy, killing as many as 20 militants, the U.S. military said.

The airstrikes occurred in southern Helmand province after rebels had pinned down coalition ground troops with rocket and small-arms fire, the military said in a statement.

The fighting is the latest in a string of attacks and battlefield engagements across the south that have raised fears that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaida allies are regrouping.

"Initial battle-damage assessments indicate 15 to 20 enemies died and an enemy vehicle was destroyed," the military said. No U.S. soldiers were injured.

Spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said the fighting began at about 10 a.m. and more U.S. and Afghan forces had been sent to the area.

"We are not going to let up on them. There is not going to be a safe haven in Afghanistan," he said.

Elsewhere in Helmand province, gunmen shot to death three civilians — a judge, an intelligence worker and an employee of the provincial education department, said Haji Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the governor.

He said it was not clear whether the Taliban or some other armed group was behind the Saturday night attack.

Some 260 suspected rebels and 29 U.S. troops have been killed in the surging violence, according to Afghan and U.S. officials. About three dozen Afghan police and soldiers also have died in that time, as have more than 100 civilians.

Afghan and American officials have warned they expect more bloodshed ahead of key parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

In other violence Sunday, three rockets smashed into the southern city of Kandahar, jolting residents but causing no casualties.

One of the rockets hit an empty lot near the former home of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, which now houses U.S. special forces troops, said Gen. Salim Khan, the deputy police chief. The other two hit elsewhere in the city.

Khan blamed Taliban rebels for the attack, and U.S. troops cordoned off the area next to Mullah Omar's old home.

"The one rocket hit right next to Mullah Omar's home, and two other rockets hit fields in Kandahar city," said Khan. "The Taliban did this. Nobody else would do such a thing."

A huge plume of black smoke is seen above the site in the densely packed Karte Ariana district of Kabul, where an enormous tire and industrial goods warehouse caught fire on Saturday June 18, 2005. The cause of the fire was still unknown while investigation on the casualties and damaged facilities was going on. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Hou Jun)

Also Sunday, the defense ministry announced that Hazrat Ali, the former Taliban intelligence and information chief, was captured Friday in a national army operation this past week in central Ghazni province. Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Murat said no soldiers were injured in the operation.

Elsewhere, a land mine exploded on a road in Khost, damaging a vehicle. Mohammed Ayub, chief of police in the province, said the mine was rigged to explode via remote control and the target was a U.N. vehicle. But Adrian Edwards, the United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan, said no U.N. vehicles were in the province at the time of the attack early Sunday.

A purported Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the ambush of a police convoy in southern Afghanistan, and said insurgents had killed a district police chief after taking him captive.

Mullah Latif Hakimi said 10 other officers captured in the Thursday ambush were alive. He said the police chief was killed for collaborating with the U.S.-led coalition.

___

Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.