Troops recapture Afghan district from Taliban
Posted on: Saturday, 3 June 2006, 02:22 CDT
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops recaptured a district occupied by the Taliban, killing at least 15 militants, an Afghan official said on Saturday.
The troops took control of the Chora district of the southern Uruzgan province late on Friday, days after the Taliban had captured the area, the defense ministry spokesman said.
"Fifteen bodies of the enemies of Afghanistan lie in the battle field and up to 20 of them have been killed. The operation is still going on against the enemies who are on the run," Zahir Azimi said in a statement.
The statement did not say if there were any casualties among coalition or Afghan troops. Coalition and Taliban spokesmen could not be contacted for immediate comment about the incident.
The operation comes during the bloodiest phase in a Taliban-led insurgency since U.S.-led coalition forces overthrew the militants' radical Islamic government in 2001.
When the Taliban took the district, they said they had killed more than a dozen policemen and had taken up to 40 as hostages. Twenty of them were later released.
Separately, 12 Taliban were killed when they attacked a police station in Mia Neshin district of the neighboring Kandahar province on Friday, said Dawud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
Some 900 people have been killed in the insurgency since the beginning of the year, half of them in May.
Air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces inflicted heavy casualties on the insurgents in southern Afghanistan last month, according to Afghan and coalition officials.
A rise in Taliban activity in the south coincides with preparations for NATO-led peacekeepers to take control of southern provinces from coalition forces, which have had a more offensive mission to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda remnants.
(Additional reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR)
Source: REUTERS
Related Articles
- U.S. Troops Mistakenly Kill Afghan police
- Taliban Take Over South Afghan District
- Coalition Airstrike Kills Afghan Family
- Afghan police clash with Taliban, many said killed
- Taliban bomb, ambush kill 5 Afghan troops, police
- Bomb kills Afghan district chief and two police
- Militants kill Afghan official, headmaster
- Taliban said to kill 7 Afghans with voting cards
- Taliban Ambush Patrols, Killing 8 Afghans
- Suspected Taliban Kill 5 Afghan Policemen
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds