 KANDAHAR: AfghanistanÂ’s security forces said they had killed or wounded more than 30 insurgents on Wednesday as a bomb blast injured three Italian soldiers and their interpreter.
| Guess there'll be a great weeping and gnashing of teeth back in Miranshah... |
Most of the enemy casualties were in the Garmser district of Helmand, said police. “In a police operation in Garmser, 25 enemies of peace and stability were killed and wounded,” said police spokesman Zemaria Bashary.
| The Talibs seem to have a peculiar fondness for Garmser, don't they? |
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which commands foreign troops in most of Afghanistan, also said that 25 insurgents were killed after rebels opened fire on a police checkpoint in Garmser. The Taliban have captured the remote town at least twice in the last few months, but ISAF dismisses this show of force because the area has a meagre security presence.
| I wonder if it has a meager presence or if it's a rat trap... |
In another clash on Wednesday, Afghan security forces killed six Taliban and captured two others in a village in Laghman near Kabul, said police official Yar Mohammad Khan. An Afghan soldier was wounded and captured, he added. The Afghan Defence Ministry announced that Afghan and coalition soldiers killed eight Taliban and captured 16 on Tuesday as part of a major operation under way in the eastern provinces. The rebels were killed in Paktika province as part of Operation Mountain Fury, the ministry said.
Meanwhile in the west, an Italian convoy returning from a school building project was struck by a “probable improvised explosive device” near Herat, injuring three soldiers and an interpreter. “Three Italian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter was hit, the last one seriously,” said spokesman for the Italian force Captain Giancarlo Ciaburro. The explosion — similar to several other Taliban-style strikes on foreign forces – came a day after an Italian soldier was killed by a remote-controlled bomb outside Kabul. Five other soldiers were injured in the incident.
A suicide car bomb also exploded in Kandahar on Wednesday, just as a Canadian military convoy passed, said the ISAF. Police said that an Afghan civilian was injured. The blast was so powerful that it tore the car containing the explosives into chunks, said an AFP reporter at the scene. Pieces of the attackerÂ’s body were strewn across the site. |