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| Afghanistan |
| Three Afghan Soldiers Killed; U.S. Forces Find Weapons Cache |
| 2003-03-23 |
| U.S. troops seized a large cache of weapons, including hundreds of mortars, rockets and land mines, and detained four suspects on Saturday during a sweep in southern Afghanistan. The cache was found inside several buildings in a walled compound near the southern Sami Ghar mountains, where hundreds of U.S.-led troops are hunting for terror suspects in a broad new operation, said Lt. Col. Michael Shields, a senior operations officer of the coalition task force. "To put it in perspective, we're still counting," Shields said, calling it the largest find in months. "In recent history, the size of this is significant." The troops also arrested two suspected rebels near the weapons cache, Shields said, though he declined to provide further details. The cache included hundreds of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and rounds, high-caliber machine guns, mortar rounds, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and "too much ammunition of all caliber to count currently," Shields said. For a weapons cache in Afghanistan to be significant, it's got to be big time... Troops also apprehended two other suspected rebels and seized a much smaller cache of ammunition and light machine guns on Friday, Army spokesman Col. Roger King said earlier. Shields said that smaller cache included documents that referred to regional leaders of rebel forces. Good idea. Round up all their friends and beat them up... The seizure came as suspected Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami renegades killed three Afghan soldiers at a post elsewhere in the southern Kandahar province. Gunmen traded fire with soldiers in the Wath army post, about 20 miles south of Spinboldak, for about an hour, then fled, said Fazaluddin Agha, the head of administration in Spinboldak district. He said they were believed to be from the former Taliban regime or with Hizb-e-Islami. Separately, Afghan soldiers on the U.S.-led sweep seized bombs, guns and ammunition and arrested 13 people said to be linked to the former Taliban regime, Abdul Raziq, police chief of Spinboldak district, where part of the search was conducted. Authorities were questioning the men — five of whom admitted having links with the Taliban, he said. I hope to hell they're not being gentle with them. Reading todays's Iraq war news doesn't make me feel very indulgent of Islamists... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |