Eight Taliban fighters were killed in an operation conducted by Afghan and Western troops after the rebels ambushed a civilian supply convoy in southern Afghanistan, police said on Sunday.
| Taliban attacked a civilian convoy. After brief fighting with security guards, the rebels retreated into a nearby village, stealing a vehicle of the guards. Police, the army, and NATO forces chased them. |
The rebels were killed late on Saturday in a raid launched after they had ambushed trucks ferrying supplies to foreign military bases in Zabul province, a police official said. “[The] Taliban attacked a civilian convoy. After brief fighting with security guards, the rebels retreated into a nearby village, stealing a vehicle of the guards,” provincial deputy police chief Faridullah Zadran said. “Police, the army, and NATO forces chased them. In [the] fighting with the Taliban, eight of them were killed and four others were captured. The stolen car was also recovered,” he told AFP.
The Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, are waging a bloody insurgency, which is particularly tense in southern provinces such as Zabul. The extremist regime was ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001 after they refused to hand over Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Around 70,000 international troops are helping the Kabul government rebuild the country from the destruction caused by decades of conflict. |