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ISAF retakes district held by Taliban
 Afghan and international troops retook a district capital in southwestern Afghanistan early on Tuesday, easily pushing out Taliban rebels who held the town for around 24 hours, the government said. The town of Bakwa in the western province of Farah was under government control and security reinforcements were there, the Interior Ministry said. We occupied Bakwa this morning at 5:30 am and the Taliban were pushed back, spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. The rebels had heard the security forces were arriving and had moved out, he said. Currently security has been brought back to the district. The district headquarters is okay, it is not destroyed, Bashary said. About 300 Taliban stormed the town on Monday, forcing out a weak police force that fled the area, provincial officials said.Citing security reasons, Bashary would not say how many security forces were involved in the early morning operation in Bakwa capital of a district of the same name or how many were in the town. He said that the Taliban group that arrived on Monday was around three times larger than the police force that had been there and numbered around 40. Asked about the weak resistance Taliban encountered in remote towns, Bashary said: We are trying to reinforce these districts, especially the southern districts. We are trying to send auxiliary police as soon as possible. We have the power to reoccupy every place of country that is attacked by the enemy. But we are waiting in Musa Qala. As soon as we find a proper and good time, we will occupy the district. Meanwhile, NATO-led troops fearing an attack killed an Afghan civilian who failed to stop at a checkpoint at the site of a deadly chopper crash, the force said on Tuesday, in the fifth such killing in three days. Another civilian was wounded in the incident on Monday near the site of Sundays crash in the southern province of Zabul, which killed eight US servicemen and wounded 14. In another development, a suicide attacker disguised as a doctor blew himself up at a hospital opening ceremony in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, wounding at least six NATO soldiers and a hospital staff, the provincial governor said. Sgt 1st Class Dean Welch, a NATO spokesman, said a number of NATO troops were wounded in the blast, but the extent of their injuries was not immediately known. He did not give their nationalities. The US-led coalition meanwhile said a US soldier was killed in Kunar province near the border with Pakistan on Monday, the 10th to die in Afghanistan this year. The Afghan Defence Ministry said one of its soldiers was killed and two others wounded on Monday when a unit was attacked in the eastern province of Nuristan. Separately, Afghan authorities raided dozens of guesthouses suspected of illegally serving alcohol and arrested 14 people, including five foreigners, in a crackdown on vice in this country, an official said on Tuesday. The Afghan attorney general and police confiscated about 750 bottles of alcohol from 27 guesthouses during the Monday night crackdown in central Kabul, said Ahmad Sameer Samimi, chief of staff of the attorney generals office. Posted by: Fred 2007-02-21 |
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