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U.S., Afghan Forces Retake Mountain Pass
American and Afghan forces killed about a dozen insurgents Wednesday and recaptured a mountain pass in southeastern Afghanistan - the scene of heavy fighting and U.S. bombardments this week, a local official said. Suspected Taliban guerrillas were believed to still be hiding in the rugged area in Zabul province, where U.S. and Afghan soldiers reoccupied the Moray Pass, said Khalil Hotak, chief of the provincial intelligence service. Some of the fighters escaped toward Uruzgan province to the west, Hotak said. Kind of hard to hold the high ground when we own the sky. U.S. military said that one coalition special operation soldier was shot in the shoulder during a firefight in Uruzgan on Tuesday night. Coalition aircraft — including AV-8 Harriers, A-10 Thunderbolts and Apache helicopters — fired on insurgents on Tuesday afternoon in clashes in Uruzgan, Col. Rodney Davis, spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, told a news briefing in Kabul. He said coalition forces were continuing operations in Uruzgan as well as neighboring Zabul and Kandahar. "We will continue to do what we have been doing, that is take advantage of whatever intelligence we have and kill anti-coalition forces where we find them," he said. Good Davis had no further details on casualties, and it was not possible to immediately confirm Hotakâs report that 12 or more suspected Taliban were killed Wednesday and whether the bodies had been collected. Posted by: Steve 2003-08-27 |
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