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Fighting "rages" in southern Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan - Fighting raged across southern
Afghanistan on Sunday as the U.S. military pounded suspected Taliban positions with airstrikes that killed as many as 20 militants along a narrow mountain footpath.
That's raging?
Sure seemed like it from the hotel bar ...
A Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, claimed his fighters had assassinated a kidnapped Afghan police chief and five of his men for collaborating with the U.S.-led coalition.
If you kidnap someone, and you later kill them, isn't that murder? I thought assassinations took place in the open.
U.S. aircraft opened fire on a group of suspected Taliban along a narrow footpath in the high mountains northwest of Gereshk, in southern Helmand province, after rebels had pinned down a coalition ground patrol with rocket and small-arms fire. "Initial battle-damage assessments indicate 15 to 20 enemies died and an enemy vehicle was destroyed," the army said in a statement. No Americans were injured.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara added a warning to the insurgents. "When these criminals engage coalition forces, they do so at considerable risk," he said. "We are not going to let up on them. There is not going to be a safe haven in Afghanistan." O'Hara told The Associated Press that additional U.S. and Afghan forces had been sent to the scene and the numbers of rebel dead could rise.

Three months of bloodshed across the south and east has left hundreds dead and sparked fears that the Afghan war is widening, rather than winding down.
Whose fears? Y'all been making those "sparks" for quite a while, now!
Sure seemed fearful from the hotel bar ...
Afghan and American officials have warned they expect more bloodshed ahead of key parliamentary elections in September.
Will the MSM be disappointed if that doesn't happen?
In other violence Sunday, three rockets smashed into the southern city of Kandahar, jolting residents but causing no casualties. One of the rockets hit an empty lot near the former home of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, which now houses U.S. special forces troops, said Gen. Salim Khan, the deputy police chief."The one rocket hit right next to Mullah Omar's home, and two other rockets hit fields in Kandahar city," said Khan. "The Taliban did this. Nobody else would do such a thing."

Elsewhere in Helmand, gunmen shot to death three men — a judge, an intelligence worker and an employee of the provincial education department, said Haji Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the governor. He said it was not clear whether the Taliban or some other armed group was behind the Saturday night attack.
Which means it's not clear whether it should be in this article, or somewhere else.
In a victory for Afghan forces and the coalition, national army troops captured Hazrat Ali, the former Taliban intelligence and information chief in central Ghazni province, said Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Murat. No soldiers were injured in the operation Friday in Gelam district, Murat said.
Nice catch.

Posted by: Bobby 2005-06-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=122029