U.S. forces battled Pakistani Taliban holdouts in a forbidding mountain range in southern Afghanistan, killing two fighters and arresting two others, an Afghan governor said Thursday. Also Thursday, international peacekeepers announced that they and Afghan security forces had arrested 17 people in the capital in a sweep against suspects allegedly trying to plant a bomb. Four people were arrested in the first phase of the operation early Wednesday afternoon — three near Kabul stadium and a fourth about a half-mile away, in front of the Finance Ministry. Explosives experts found three detonators in the vest of the last suspect and later found a fuse and high explosives, the peacekeepers said in a statement.
"What's this in your pocket, Mahmoud?"
"It's my lucky detonator!" |
Some 13 others were taken into custody in a raid on a home late Wednesday in the capital believed to belong to the leader of a 10-man terrorist cell. "The apprehension brought to a close an ongoing surveillance operation that successfully identified, tracked and apprehended the individuals before a suspected terrorist act could be perpetrated," said the e-mailed statement by peacekeepers, called the International Security and Assistance Force, said in a statement. It was not clear what the target was or whether the men were affiliated with Pakistan the Taliban or its allies. No Afghan or peacekeeping authorities were injured in the raid. The 6,500-strong peacekeeping contingent has been involved in several other operations in recent days, arresting two senior members of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's forces.
The fighting involving U.S. forces occurred Wednesday in the Tangi mountains of Zabul province, said provincial Gov. Khial Mohammed. U.S. forces had received a tip that an unspecified number of Pakistani Taliban fighters were hiding there, he said. There were no American casualties in the gunbattle, which lasted four hours. Five AK-47 rifles and one rocket launcher were seized during the operation, Mohammed said. It was not clear whether any of those killed or captured were senior JUI or JI Taliban members.
Meanwhile, a bomb exploded near a bazaar in the southern city of Kandahar, damaging a nearby shop and killing the suspected attacker, the local military commander said Thursday. Kandahar borders Zabul to the south, though there was no indication the two incidents were related. The bomb went off Wednesday night when the bazaar was closed, Gen. Khan Mohammed told The Associated Press. He said he believed it may have gone off by accident as the man was setting it up. The general said the route near the bazaar is often used by Afghan and U.S. military vehicles, but it was not clear what the target was, or who was behind the botched attack. "These are enemies of Afghanistan," Khan Mohammed said.
| "Luckily, they're not real clear on the red wire-green wire concept..." |
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