QALAT, Afghanistan, 1 September 2003 — A gunbattle yesterday pitting suspected Taleban fighters against Afghan and US forces, the latest skirmish in week-long battles in the country’s east and south, left two American soldiers and four Taleban dead.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Taleban fighters poured into remote southern mountains to join fighting against Afghan forces and their US allies.
The American soldiers died after a 90-minute gunbattle in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province. Another soldier was wounded and reported in stable condition at a treatment facility at a coalition outpost north of Shkin. The identities of the soldiers have not been released.
“The US forces were conducting a combat mission in the vicinity of a firebase near Shkin when the engagement occurred,” the US military said in a statement. “Two of the soldiers died of wounds received during the initial contact with enemy fighters northwest of Shkin, in Paktika province this morning,” the US military statement said.
Four insurgents were killed during the battle, he said.
The soldiers’ deaths came after a US special operations soldier was killed Friday in a fall during a combat operation in southern Zabul province, the scene of a week of intense fighting. A week earlier another US soldier was killed in combat in eastern Afghanistan.
In all, 35 US soldiers have been killed in action in Afghanistan, and 162 wounded due to hostilities, the US military said.
Yesterday, hundreds of Taleban reinforcements poured into the mountain region in the south as US fighter jets supporting heavily armed Afghan soldiers pummeled entrenched rebel positions for a seventh day, an Afghan military commander said.
Dozens of suspected Taleban have been killed in the onslaught, one of the fiercest since the hard-line group was driven from power in late 2001.
The latest bombing lasted three hours and ended shortly before dawn yesterday, said Khalil Hotak, the intelligence chief of southern Zabul province.
Afghan soldiers swept through the area in Dai Chupan district afterward and claimed to have seen 14 newly killed Taleban fighters, according to Hotak. There were no reports of casualties among government forces. It was not possible to independently confirm Hotak’s reports. He spoke to The Associated Press at an operations center in Qalat, the provincial capital about 70 kilometers (42 miles) south of the fighting.
