Afghan and NATO troops killed 17 rebels, including two commanders in southern Afghanistan, the interior ministry said on Wednesday. “Seventeen enemy elements were killed, including two Taliban commanders, and three wounded were also arrested,” ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.Bashary said the operation took place in Helmand. Helmand police chief General Mohammad Nabi Mullahkhail said two Taliban pickup trucks were also destroyed in the operation in and around the province’s Kajaki district. The British military would not immediately comment. An ISAF spokesman in Kabul confirmed there had been “sporadic incidents” in the area, but could not confirm the interior ministry’s death toll.
Separately, insurgents torched a newly built school for refugee children in eastern Afghanistan. The school set alight on Monday night in Nangarhar was made up of tents from the UN children’s fund, UNICEF, provincial spokesman Hazrat Hussain said. “Five tents of a new UNICEF-built school were burned down last night in Behsud district,” he said. Hussain blamed the attack on the “enemies of Afghanistan”. Gul Pacha Khalizay, the deputy education director of the province, said about 200 boys and girls from a nearby refugee camp used the primary school.
An Afghan police chief was missing after Taliban insurgents raided and torched a district-level government office and clinic, police said on Monday. The insurgents raided a district headquarters in the western province of Farah on Sunday night. Provincial police chief General Sayed Agha Saqib told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency the districtÂ’s police chief was missing after the raid in which the Taliban also set fire to a wheat storage depot.