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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| 6 dead in Afghanistan |
| 2005-03-25 |
| US-led troops killed three Taliban militants in a firefight in which two children and a woman also died in southeast Afghanistan, the US military said. Another child died in a separate gunbattle east of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Among the dead militants was a Taliban commander named Raz Mohammad, who was implicated in many of the attacks against coalition forces in southeastern Paktika province, according to a US military statement issued late on Wednesday. The military said fighting broke out on Tuesday and US-led forces came under intense fire as they arrived in Mohammad's village in Paktika, which borders Pakistan. The militants, children and woman died during the fighting. An Afghan soldier was also killed, the US military said. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi confirmed Raz Mohammad's death but had a different version of the encounter. He said the Taliban killed eight US soldiers and that Mohammad and seven members of his family were killed in an attack from the air. A US warplane killed five militants on Tuesday in the southeastern province of Khost, close to the Pakistan border. To the northeast, in Kunar province, a village boy was killed on Wednesday in a shootout involving US troops and militants. A US military statement said the troops had opened fire after flushing out a suspected bombmaker and two other armed men in a village close to Kunar's provincial capital, Asadabad. The onset of spring was expected to herald an increase in Taliban activity, as the country prepares for parliamentary elections on Sept. 18. NATO's top military commander, General James Jones of the US Marines, noting how the threat from Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters had faded in the past three years, said on Wednesday that security forces are not facing an organised insurgency. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Another wedding reception gone terribly wrong. Why do the AK's hate us so much? |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2005-03-25 9:23:43 AM |