KABUL, 5 May 2005 — US and Afghan troops backed by jets and helicopters killed around 20 suspected Taleban militants on the day that a new American commander took charge in the war-torn country, the US military said yesterday. One Afghan police officer also died while six US servicemen and five Afghan police were injured during the gunbattle on Tuesday in Deh Chopan, a troubled district in southeastern Zabul province, a US military statement said.
The firefight was one of the bloodiest since the Taleban regime, ousted by a US-led coalition three and a half years ago, emerged from hibernation to launch a renewed springtime offensive.
As the battle raged, US Maj. Gen. Karl Eikenberry was being sworn in a few hundred kilometers to the north to replace Lt. Gen. David Barno as chief of US forces in Afghanistan. The US military said a group of around 25 rebels launched an “unprovoked” attack after an Afghan man led local police to a place where he said he had been beaten by a group of unknown individuals.
“Afghan National Army forces and US soldiers operating in the area quickly moved to the site and cordoned off the insurgent forces by use of small-arms fire and support from coalition fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft,” the statement added. “Initial reports indicate approximately 20 insurgents were killed and one wounded.”
A village leader with suspected links to the Taleban and six other attackers were detained by US forces, the statement added. One insurgent was also wounded during the battle, it said. All the wounded were evacuated to a hospital in nearby Kandahar and were reported to be in a stable condition, the US military added.
Two of the wounded US soldiers returned to duty and the remaining four soldiers will be transported to a medical centre in Germany for further treatment, the statement said. Local authorities in Zabul and officials in the capital had told AFP late Tuesday that a massive operation was ongoing in mountainous Deh Chopan, where US and Afghan forces have frequently been attacked.
Meanwhile, frustrated with immoral programs on Afghan television, Muslim religious leaders plan to set up the country’s first Islamic channel. Since the fall of the Taleban, private television stations have sprung up in the conservative Islamic country, some showing Western pop videos and steamy Bollywood movies. “There are private televisions that run films and songs which are not good for our society,” Qayamuddin Kashaf, spokesman for the Ulema Council that is behind the plan said yesterday.
“In order to save society from decline, we would like to set up a television channel to promote the role of Islam. The duty of the Ulema is to propagate religion and television is a better way these days to do that,” he said, referring to religious leaders. The council has no funds for the project but has obtained the blessing of President Hamid Karzai.
But the government has offered no financial or technical help and the council hopes to fund the service through donations from members of the public wary of the “threat” of alien culture, Kashaf said. Council members would also go to villages to explain the plan and seek help, he said. The channel would focus on the role of Islam, Afghan culture and the problems of women and young people, he said.
The council, headed by Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari had yet to choose a name for the station. It had also yet to decide if music would be broadcast. The council was formed nearly two years ago to propagate Islamic values in the face of rapid social changes and freedoms Afghanistan has seen since US-led forces overthrew the Taleban. The Taleban had banned television, music and cinema under their harsh interpretation of Islam.
