Skip to main content

Afghanistan Fighting Kills 2 US Soldiers, 30 Militants

By VOA News
04 July 2009
US Marines patrol through a village in Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province, 04 Jul 2009
US Marines patrol through a village in Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province, 04 Jul 2009
U.S. and Afghan officials say two U.S. soldiers and at least 30 militants have been killed in fighting that began with a Taliban attack on a base in eastern Afghanistan.

Officials say Taliban militants began firing rockets and mortars on the base in the Zirok district of Paktika province Saturday. NATO says one of the mortars contained white phosphorus.

During an ensuing clash with troops, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck toward the base, but he was shot before he could reach it. The truck exploded.

The battle ended when troops called in airstrikes. A provincial Afghan official, Hamidullah Zawak, says at least 30 militants were killed. The U.S. military says two of its soldiers were killed in an explosion.





The troops were fighting under NATO, which released a statement saying 10 militants were killed. None of the death tolls could be independently verified.

Saturday's attack took place in the same province where an American soldier was believed captured by insurgents on Tuesday. A Taliban faction led by Sirajuddin Haqqani operates in Paktika province and has been responsible for a number of high profile attacks.

The clash in Paktika comes just days after the United States launched a major offensive in southern Afghanistan to drive out Taliban insurgents and secure the area ahead of a presidential vote in Afghanistan in August.

About 4,000 U.S. Marines are taking part in the operation, which includes developing remote parts of Helmand province in a bid to win over local Afghans.

Elsewhere in the south, the Afghan interior ministry says seven Afghan police officers were killed Saturday in a roadside bombing in Kandahar province.

The ministry says a bomb blast killed an Afghan civilian and wounded another in the northern province of Jawzjan Saturday.

And Afghan defense officials say two Afghan soldiers were killed Friday in a roadside bombing in the Musa Qala district of Helmand.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Wake of Protests, Khamenei Faces Split Inside Regime

By Geneive Abdo Iran Analyst, The Century Foundation The basij militias may have crushed the historic street protests against Iran’s election results, but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei now faces a more pressing problem: how to prevent a potent coalition of political elites arrayed against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from destabilizing the entire Islamic political system – and undercutting his own power, too. Western journalists, politicians and pundits have largely focused on the unrest in the streets of Tehran – the worst in the history of the Islamic republic – usually with the underlying, if unjustified, assumption that popular rebellion against clerical rule is at last at hand. However, the real battle is taking place inside the closed world of Iran’s clerical caste, particularly among the relatively confined circle of the “political mullahs” and their lay allies – all of whom have eschewed traditional Shi’ite teachings against direct involvement in political affairs. A “coali...
Post a Comment
Read more

Former Iraqi Official Gets 7 Years for Expelling Kurds

By VOA News 02 August 2009 An image from Al-Iraqia TV station of former deputy PM Tariq Aziz in Baghdad (file) Iraq's highest court has sentenced former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz to seven years in prison for expelling Kurds from northern Iraq during former dictator Saddam Hussein's rule. The Iraqi High Tribunal handed down the sentence Sunday. Aziz was deputy prime minister when Iraq invaded Kuwait and during the 1991 Gulf War. He served as an international spokesman for the Iraqi government. Also Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled to Iraq's Kurdish region to meet Kurdish politicians in an effort to resolve disputes over land and oil. Mr. Maliki met near the city of Sulaymaniyah with the Kurdish region's newly re-elected President Massoud Barzani and Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, who also is a Kurd. After the meeting, Mr. Maliki said the two sides agreed to hold furthe...
Post a Comment
Read more