Taliban attack Afghan town, 53 killed

By Mirwais Afghan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Hundreds of Taliban
insurgents attacked a town in the southern Afghan province of
Helmand, and 13 policemen and 40 Taliban were killed in hours
of fighting, government officials said on Thursday.

Helmand’s deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada, said
it was the biggest strike in the province by the hardline
Islamists since they were driven from power in 2001.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan
government forces in recent months as thousands more NATO
peacekeepers arrive. Violence in parts of the country is the
worst it has been since the end of their rule.

The attack on the town of Mosa Qala, 470 km (300 miles)
southwest of Kabul, was launched on Wednesday evening and the
fighting went on until early on Thursday.

“Thirteen policemen were killed and six were injured,”
Interior Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said in a
statement. “Forty people on the enemy side were killed.”

In a separate incident, a suicide car bomber attacked a
convoy in the generally peaceful western city of Herat, killing
himself and an American civilian. A U.S. embassy spokesman said
he was a State Department contractor training Afghan police.

A suicide bomber also attacked a U.S. military convoy near
Ghazni town, 125 km (75 miles) southwest of Kabul, killing
himself and a man on a motorcycle, an Afghan army officer said.

A U.S. soldier suffered minor wounds, a U.S. military
spokeswoman said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Herat attack but
there was no immediate claim for the Ghazni blast.

A Canadian woman soldier was killed in fighting in
neighboring Kandahar province on Wednesday, hours before
Canada’s parliament narrowly backed a two-year extension of
Canada’s Afghan mission to 2009.

The U.S. military said 18 Taliban were killed and 26
captured in the fighting in Panjwai district, 25 km (16 miles)
west of Kandahar town on Wednesday.

In fighting in the area on Thursday, at least seven Taliban
were confirmed killed and up to 20 others might have been
killed in an air strike, the U.S. military said.

“Three of six Taliban associated compounds were possibly
destroyed by air strikes,” it said, adding one foreign soldier
was wounded.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

In Helmand, Afghan forces were battling the insurgents
after they withdrew from Mosa Qala, Akhundzada said. There had
been civilian casualties but he said he did not know how many.

British troops oversee security in Helmand but no foreign
soldiers were involved in the battle, Afghan officials said.

The Taliban focused their attack on government offices and
police stations, and many shops in the town’s market caught
fire during the battle, Akhundzada said.

The town is 40 km (25 miles) north of the province’s Sangin
district, the scene of frequent clashes between Taliban and
foreign and government forces.

A Taliban commander, speaking by telephone, said 30
policemen had been killed. Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad
Yousuf told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency
Taliban had captured the town but later withdrew.

NATO member nations are sending reinforcements to boost
their peacekeeping force from 9,000 to 16,000. The force will
soon take over in the perilous south in what is set to be the
alliance’s toughest ground mission in its 57-year history.

With about 23,000 troops, the United States now has its
largest force in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in
2001 after refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of
the September 11 attacks.

(Additional reporting by Yousuf Azimy)