KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 23 June 2005 — Afghan and US troops backed by warplanes blasted Taleban hide-outs in southwestern Afghanistan for a second day yesterday, killing over 60 militants in the bloodiest fighting in months. Two Afghan troops died and six US soldiers were wounded in the fighting on the border between Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces aimed at checking a surge in militant violence ahead of Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, Afghan and US officials said.
Kandahar’s deputy police chief, Gen. Salim Khan, leading a force of about 400 police, said by satellite telephone from the scene of the fighting that a total of more than 60 Taleban fighters had been killed since Tuesday and 30 captured. US military spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore put the Taleban death toll at 49 but said the numbers could rise as more reports from the field came in.
She said two US CH-47 Chinook helicopters were also damaged by small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire on Tuesday that forced one to make an emergency landing, but there were no casualties and both returned to base.
Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said 7 guerrillas had been killed, including a senior commander, Mulla Mohammad Easa. He said no Taleban fighters had been captured. US A-10 “Tankbuster” aircraft, British Harrier jets and US AH-64 Apache attack helicopters took part in the offensive that began on Tuesday. “Coalition warplanes and attack helicopters hammered enemy positions throughout the evening,” Moore said.
Kandahar’s deputy police chief said US jets and attack helicopters again pounded insurgent positions on Wednesday and the guerrillas were fleeing the onslaught through the mountains into Zabul province. “This is the heaviest bombing and fighting I have seen since the fall of the Taleban,” he said. US-led forces overthrew the Taleban government in late 2001 after it refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Elsewhere, government forces killed a Taleban-linked commander, Saaduddin Yaqoubzada, and a number of his men in fighting that broke out overnight in the western province of Farah, district chief Mohammad Salim said. Yaqoubzada had told Reuters earlier that six children, five women and four of his fighters had been killed by government forces in the clashes in Farah’s Porchaman district.
He could not be reached later on his satellite phone. Salim said one member of the security forces had died and 10 of Yaqoubzada’s men had been arrested.
The US military said the fighting in the Kandahar-Zabul region was part of a search and attack operation codenamed “Catania” to destroy guerrilla hideouts.
“This is an ongoing effort to take away enemy sanctuaries,” another US spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara, said in a statement. “We are not letting up on the enemy and will continue to pursue them until the fighting stops.”
Salim said the guerrillas killed were from a group that had last week taken over Mian Nishin, a district capital about 400 km southwest of Kabul.
The guerrillas had killed eight of 31 captives in an embarrassment to the provincial government, but fled as the town was retaken by government forces on Tuesday. Salim said the 23 police officers the guerrillas said they had freed after holding them in Mian Nishin were still missing.
