Afghan police and US-led coalition forces clashed with Taliban insurgents in western Afghanistan early on Tuesday, leaving 18 suspected militants dead and four other people wounded, an official said. The latest violence occurred with Afghan officials claiming their forces had trapped up to 200 Taliban in a southern village, possibly including the militia’s military commander, Mullah Dadullah, a claim later denied by the Taliban. After a winter lull in the violence, Afghan, NATO and US-led forces have stepped up operations in recent weeks hoping to pre-empt a feared spring offensive by militants that threatened the already shaky grip of President Hamid Karzai’s government. Afghan and coalition forces launched an overnight operation late Monday in Bakwa district in Farah province, said a spokesman for the provincial police Chief Baryalai Khan. He said two suspected militants were killed and two wounded, while two police personnel were also wounded and eight suspected militants arrested in the ongoing operation. Afghan and NATO soldiers setting up an ambush for rebel fighters in the early hours of Tuesday in the southern province of Zabul followed this. “In the resulting exchange of gunfire, 11 Taliban were killed. There were no Afghan casualties,” said General Rahmatullah Raufi. Five more “enemy elements” were killed in the northeastern province of Kunar in another operation.
Meanwhile in the relatively calm north, a bomb exploded outside the Sari Pul provincial governorÂ’s home on Tuesday morning with no casualties, said Governor Eqbal Munib. He said it was the third attempt on his life in the past year in an area where attacks are generally rare.
Afghan police and government officials said up to 200 suspected Taliban had been surrounded in the mountain village of Keshay in Uruzgan province for three days. The Taliban had gathered in the area for a meeting. Deputy Interior Security Minster Abdul Hadi Khalid told a security commission in Parliament on Monday that it was “possible that Mullah Dadullah was among” those who were attending the meeting. He said Afghan officials had demanded that the Taliban surrender or face military action. He did not mention any deadline for them to surrender.
Provincial police Chief Gen Muhammad Qasim Khan said NATO troops were also involved in the siege but NATO and the US-led coalition said Tuesday they had no information to support the AfghansÂ’ account. A Taliban spokesman in the south, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, admitted the Taliban were trapped but denied that Dadullah was in the area.
In other violence, assailants abducted and beheaded an Afghan intelligence service employee and struck one of the agencyÂ’s vehicles with a remote-controlled bomb in a separate attack that killed six employees and wounded three, officials said.