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| Afghanistan |
| NATO kills over 30 Taliban in Afghan gunbattle |
| 2010-07-02 |
| The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) said on Thursday its forces had killed at least 31 Taliban fighters and captured a rebel chieftain after a four-hour gunbattle in southern parts of Afghanistan. After record casualties in June, the military alliance also announced the first death for July, saying a soldier whose nationality was not revealed died following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan. NATO said it troops had called in air support during gun battle in southern Helmand province where fighting erupted after rebels attacked soldiers moving in on their compound with machine guns and rockets. In a statement, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that the Taliban chief of Naw Zad, a restive district of Helmand, was injured and detained following the fighting. "Afghan and international security forces captured the Taliban district chief of Naw Zad and killed a large number of insurgents during an operation in remote Baghran district in northern Helmand province last night," it said. ISAF spokesman General Josef Blotz said at least 31 insurgents had been killed in the operation in Baghran. "Throughout the four-hour firefight enemy forces attempted to use improvised explosive devices against the security force," he told reporters, referring to homemade bombs regularly used by the Taliban. However, the Afghan and the coalition forces employed precision air fire and suppressed the enemy, he said. A huge arms cache and a quantity of opium had been discovered and destroyed, he said. Troops captured several wounded insurgents following the fighting, the ISAF statement said, and no civilian or soldier was hurt. This operation dealt another significant blow to the Taliban network, said Colonel William Maxwell, ISAF Joint Command Combined Joint Operations Centre director. As Afghan and international troops work to weaken the insurgency, President Hamid Karzai has signed a decree launching an Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme, which has been in the works for months, to lure Taliban foot soldiers off the battlefield. The initiative would attract low- to -midlevel fighters with promises of security, jobs, literacy and vocational training plus development aid for their villages. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 I'm a waiting for this version of the headline: "NATO kills over 15,000 Taliban in Afghan Gunbattle." |
| Posted by: 3dc 2010-07-02 19:37 |
| #1 NATO routinely declines to identify captured Taliban leaders for security reasons. But Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, said those captured included Mullah Nazar Mohammad, the Taliban district chief of Now Zad, and Mullah Malang, a Taliban commander in Baghran. |
| Posted by: ed 2010-07-02 00:45 |