 Afghan and US-led coalition forces said at least 39 suspected insurgents were killed in clashes since Monday, including a Taliban commander involved in the kidnapping of South Korean church workers while suicide blasts killed three police officers.
However, the US military said it was not yet clear whether any hostage-takers were among “several” insurgents killed during the pre-dawn clash in Qarabagh district of the Ghazni province. Ghazni police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai said Taliban commander Mullah Mateen was among those killed, identifying him as one of the hostage-takers. “He was involved in the kidnapping. We have reconnaissance colleagues on the ground,” Ahmadzai told Reuters by telephone from Ghazni.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said seven insurgents were killed in the clash, all of them cannon fodder ordinary fighters. He said the Taliban did not have a commander called Mullah Mateen, adding he did not know whom the government was referring to.
In the past, Afghan authorities have claimed to kill local Taliban commanders that turned out to be false. Taliban spokesman have also downplayed or lied about the extent of their battlefield losses.
The suicide attacks took place Tuesday in Kunduz town in northern Afghanistan and on Monday in Paktika province. Officers in Kunduz had been trailing a suspicious vehicle before they challenged the driver as he neared the townÂ’s bus station, deputy police chief Mohammed Omar Khail said. As they opened the doors, he detonated his explosives, killing two officers and wounding five others, he said.
In the attack in Paktika, a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a police car, killing one officer and wounding two others, said Ghamia Khan, spokesman for Paktika’s governor. Also Monday, a joint US-led coalition patrol came under suspected Taliban attack in southern Kandahar province, a separate statement said. At the request of ground forces, aircraft bombed the Taliban positions, killing “over one dozen” of the fighters, the statement said. |