KABUL, 21 September 2003 — Eight nomads, including women and children, and a Taleban commander were among 17 people killed by US bombing in southeast Afghanistan’s violence-wracked Zabul province, the local governor said yesterday. The nomads, all civilians, and two Taleban were killed when US aircraft Tuesday night bombed the nomads’ camp in remote Shinkay district, 340 kilometers southwest of Kabul, Zabul Governor Hafizullah Hashim said.
The Taleban commander and militant had escaped a massive US-Afghan offensive that began Aug. 30 against mountain hide-outs in Daychopan, and taken shelter in the nomads’ camp. Hashim named the dead Taleban commander as Mohammad Gul Niazai. The civilians died in their beds when a bomb landed on their tent in Naw Bahar district of the southern province of Zabul on Wednesday night, said deputy provincial governor Mohammad Omar.
“The figure I have for the civilian death toll is at least eight,” Omar told Reuters. “The Taleban commander and his friend were apparently using a satellite phone, the signal of which was detected by American aircraft which then carried out the attack.”
Omar said government troops and soldiers from US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan were hunting Taleban fugitives in several districts of Zabul yesterday, but did not have details.
Another seven Taleban fleeing Daychopan were also killed Tuesday by US bombing in another part of Shinkay, Hashim said. “After the Taleban escaped Daychopan valley they fled to different districts and valleys,” the governor said. Niazai and one of his men fled to the Roghani area, where several nomad camps are set up.
US-led bomber aircraft killed 11 suspected Taleban fighters in Zabul and neighboring Kandahar province earlier this week under the anti-militant offensive dubbed Operation Mountain Viper. Around 150 suspected militants have been killed under the joint three-weekold offensive.
In a separate incident, Taleban guerrillas killed a district police chief in the southern province of Kandahar. In Zerai district, district police chief Sardar Mohammad was killed and two of his bodyguards wounded when guerrillas on motorbikes opened fire on them, said Gul Agha, a military official in Afghanistan’s former royal capital.
An explosion in a house where explosives were stored killed nine members of an Afghan family and seriously injured two, police said yesterday. The blast in the eastern province of Laghman on Friday was caused by an electricity surge that ignited a pile of explosives used for construction blasting, the police said.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan announced a long-delayed reform of the powerful Defense Ministry yesterday and said it would allow the start next month of an ambitious plan to disarm factional militias threatening security and elections.
The announcement came a day before the departure of President Hamid Karzai on a foreign tour taking him to the United States, Canada and Britain, on which he is expected to seek additional help to boost security ahead of general elections due next June.
The government has said the restructuring of the ethnic Tajik-dominated Defense Ministry was aimed at making it more ethnically representative and efficient, but the 22 appointments announced on state television fell short of sweeping change.
A decree signed by Karzai gave Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, the largest representation in the ministry, but control remained in the hands of Tajik Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who as expected retained his post.
