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| Afghanistan |
| Deadly violence spreads to Afghan north |
| 2009-07-23 |
| Clashes and a Taliban attack killed up to two dozen people in northern Afghanistan, a once peaceful region where insurgent violence is spreading ahead of elections, officials said on Wednesday. Fourteen civilians were "killed and injured" in a Taliban attack on Tuesday in the province of Kunduz, where Afghan forces have launched an offensive to root out Taliban-linked rebels, the local governor said. Muhammad Omar, Kunduz provincial governor, could not give an exact number of civilians killed when the Taliban fired a rocket or mortar into a house where students were gathering, but said, "Most of them are dead." Hmmmmmmm...perhaps the Taliban will adjust their ROE to prevent civilian casulties? Nah.... Local media reported that 11 civilians were killed in the attack, which was aimed at security forces but veered off target. On Tuesday, 13 Taliban, including two foreigners, were killed while fighting against Afghan forces in the province's Chahar Dara district and 14 Taliban were arrested in the same district on Wednesday, Omar added. Citing intelligence reports, the governor claimed that about 20 Al Qaeda-linked foreign Taliban and 300 Taliban fighters had flooded into his province, a strategic region bordering Tajikistan. General Muhammad Zahir Azimi, Afghan defence ministry spokesman, told reporters that Taliban were infiltrating the north potentially to disrupt supply convoys crossing into Afghanistan from central Asia. Meanhwile, Afghanistan is repositioning forces to the south after complaints too few were involved in major US and British offensives against the Taliban, officials said on Wednesday, even as clashes erupted in the north, Reuters reported. Thousands of US Marines and British troops launched assaults in the southern Taliban stronghold of Helmand this month. A convoy belonging to a minor presidential candidate, former Taliban commander Mullah Salam Rocketi, was ambushed as he returned to Kabul after campaigning in northern Baghlan and one of his campaign officials was killed, Rocketi said. Rocketi, an army commander during the Taliban rule who renounced the militants after their overthrow to become a minister of parliament, was unhurt. He took his name because he often fired rocket-propelled grenades at occupying Soviet troops. Brigadier General Lawrence Nicholson, commander of US Marines in Afghanistan, complained about a week after Operation Strike of the Sword began in Helmand that there were not enough Afghan troops involved. "You can do the math," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Yokay, I'll bite, "Rocketi"??? ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUMS > US BALUCH LEADERS SEEK INDIAN INTERVENTION TO END PAKISTAN STATE TERRORISM IN BALUCHISTAN [aka Balochistan]. Any means and every means necessary to help the Baluchis + STOP PAKI PERSECUTIONS [read, MILITARY]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-07-23 22:08 |
| #2 Ethnographic map: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/afghanistan_ethnoling_97.jpg |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-07-23 10:06 |
| #1 note - kunduz province - the one Pashtun bastion in the north. |
| Posted by: liberal hawk 2009-07-23 09:36 |