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| Afghanistan |
| Taliban Kill 17 Police in Southern Afghanistan |
| 2015-06-14 |
| [AnNahar] At least 17 Afghan coppers were killed Saturday when dozens of Talibs stormed their outpost in the country's volatile south, the latest attack of an increasingly deadly summer fighting season. The pre-dawn raid occurred in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province as the Taliban intensify their countrywide summer offensive despite repeated government attempts to reopen peace negotiations. "Dozens of armed Taliban attacked a police checkpoint in Musa Qala district of Helmand," provincial police chief Nabi Jan Mullahkhil told AFP. "In the attack, 17 police forces were killed, and three others were maimed." Omar Zwak, the front man for the Helmand provincial governor, confirmed the corpse count from the raid that occurred just after midnight and lasted several hours. The Taliban grabbed credit for the attack, saying they seized several weapons, ammunition and other military hardware from the checkpost. "Our mujahedeen, armed with heavy and light weapons, attacked police checkpoint in Musa Qala district," Taliban front man Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP. "In the attack, 25 police forces were killed and 13 others were maimed." The Taliban, who were toppled from power in a 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, are known to make exaggerated battlefield claims. The hard boyz launched a countrywide offensive in late April, stepping up attacks on government and foreign targets in what is expected to be the bloodiest fighting season in a decade. Saturday's attack marks another grim setback for Afghan forces, facing their first fighting season without full NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... support. NATO's combat mission formally ended in December but a small follow-up foreign force of about 12,500 mainly U.S. troops has stayed on to train and support local security personnel. Afghan authorities have repeatedly tried to jumpstart talks with the Taliban in the hope of ending the 13-year conflict, but the Lions of Islam have set tough conditions, including the withdrawal of all foreign troops in Afghanistan. Afghan cops, many of them poorly equipped, have increasingly borne the brunt of the fighting around Afghanistan. In early May Talibs killed at least 13 coppers after storming security outposts in the remote mountainous province of Badakhshan. The attack came just weeks after a similar Taliban raid on army checkpoints in the northeast province in which 18 soldiers were killed -- including some who had their heads chopped off. Earlier this year a U.S. watchdog said in a report that Afghan cops were suffering heavy casualties on the battlefield and large numbers of troops were resigning or deserting their units. Between October 2013 and September 2014, more than 1,300 Afghan army soldiers were killed in action and 6,200 were maimed, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in its report. Between September 2013 and September 2014, more than 40,000 personnel were dropped from Afghan National Army rolls, it added. The surge in attacks has also taken a heavy toll on civilians, according to the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. Almost 1,000 non-combatants were killed in the conflict during the first four months of this year, a sharp jump from the same period last year, it said. President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. 's government has drawn criticism for failing to end growing bad boy attacks, which critics partly blame on political infighting and a lengthy delay in appointing a candidate for the crucial post of defense minister. Ghani last month nominated Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a top official in the government body overseeing the country's grinding of the peace processor, for the job. The post had been left vacant for months due to disagreements between Ghani and his chief executive and former presidential election rival, Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... . |
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