KABUL, 15 October 2003 — US helicopter gunships struck positions of a group of Taleban militants yesterday in the central province of Uruzgan as joint US and Afghan ground forces tightened a siege of the guerrillas, officials said.
At least three Taleban fighters and one Afghan government soldier have been killed in clashes since Monday in Darwan village of Char Cheny district, a day after Taleban guerrillas killed four soldiers in an ambush in the area, they said. “We and American troops have tightened the siege on the Taleban,” district chief Abdur Rahman told Reuters. “We are moving forward, but the Taleban are fighting fiercely too.
“Three Taleban bodies have been spotted, but I don’t have fresh casualty figures for our troops except for the one killed and the four wounded from yesterday.”
The United Nations urged nations yesterday to provide troops for an expanded NATO peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and said they needed to be deployed quickly and over a wide area.
The UN Security Council on Monday authorized the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to send troops anywhere in Afghanistan rather than confine them to Kabul.
The government said the unanimous resolution was evidence of strong international support for the transitional administration of President Hamid Karzai. “This is obviously going to have a positive impact on the political process, the reconstruction process and the security situation,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad. “We will have to see how long it is before the deployment.”
A spokesman for the UN mission in Afghanistan said it welcomed the decision to expand peacekeeping into the unruly provinces, a step it has long been urging, but added the deployment should not be delayed or too limited.
“We know Afghans will be disappointed if the deployment does not take place early enough and widely enough to respond to the aspirations of the Afghan people and security requirements of the country,” Manoel de Almeida e Silva told a news briefing.
However, a NATO spokesman stressed that so far the alliance had only decided in principle to expand ISAF. He said a decision to go ahead would depend on fresh military advice, which is likely next week, and “the political debate that will follow”.
NATO military planners last month proposed various options for expanding the 5,500-strong ISAF, with suggestions ranging from about 2,000 to 10,000 troops.
