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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan Troops Fight Taliban Near Border |
| 2003-07-02 |
| Afghan government soldiers were trying to flush out Taliban fighters believed to be regrouping in remote mountain peaks near the Pakistan border, army commander Mungal Khan said Wednesday. A week of sporadic and at times intense fighting in Barai Ghar mountains, in the southeast corner of Zabul province, has left one soldier and a Taliban commander dead, he said. Khan estimated that as many as 100 Taliban fighters were hiding in the mountains, considered a stronghold of the former Taliban regime. There have been dozens of attacks by suspected Taliban fighters in eastern and southern Afghanistan, where Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group dominates. Most Taliban were Pashtuns. And the sun rises in the east. "We have laid siege to the area to try to arrest the Taliban," Khan said. Both sides have been using heavy machine guns and rockets in the fighting. Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops along its border with Afghanistan in a bid to prevent remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda from escaping to its territory. Sure they are, they just aren't very good at it. Elsewhere, a suspected terrorist was killed when a bomb he was planting exploded by accident just east of Kabul, police said Wednesday. "Work accident", somebody call OSHA. The blast late Tuesday left a seven-foot-wide crater in a dirt road nine miles east of Kabul. No other casualties were reported, said Zaher Khan, a police chief in the district. It was unclear what the slain man was targeting. Let's see, it was on a road....... |
| Posted by:Steve |