US special troops and Afghan police clashed with foreign militants in eastern Afghanistan, leaving at least five militants dead, the US military said on Thursday. Some 10 militants attacked Afghan border police in Dand Wa Patan district in Paktia province on Wednesday, before police assisted by US special forces clashed and chased them through the mountains, the military said in a statement. “After trapping the enemy in a valley before nightfall, the troops requested close air support to strike the enemy position,” it said. The remains of five militants were found in the area.
Separately, a bomb exploded near a provincial government headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing a passer-by, while three more civilians died in attacks blamed on Taliban insurgents.
A Taliban spokesman meanwhile refused to comment on a deadline of Friday to meet demands for the release of two French aid workers captured with three Afghans three weeks ago, but said they were “in good health”.
The blast in the town of Mihtarlam, about 100 kilometres from Kabul, was outside the offices of the Laghman provincial government and “a passer-by was martyred as a result,” said a provincial spokesman.
Another civilian man was killed and one wounded overnight when around 20 rockets were fired into Barmal province, officials said. The rockets appeared to have been targeted at a base of NATOÂ’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) but instead hit a civilian house, provincial officials said.
Elsewhere in the same province, armed men shot dead two other civilians, the officials said. Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the men were spies. A statement posted on the Taliban website on April 20 said FranceÂ’s 1,000 troops with ISAF must be withdrawn and Kabul must release Taliban prisoners within a week for the release of the abducted pair. Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said on Thursday he could not comment on the deadline.