KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 26 February 2005 — At least 22 rebels and troops have been killed in a renewed surge in violence in Afghanistan, US and Afghan officials said yesterday. Gunmen killed nine Afghan troops in southern Helmand province near the border with Pakistan, a provincial government official said, in one of the bloodiest attacks against Afghan forces for months.
The soldiers were killed while on a night patrol in the Chakool Ghar area of the province. “Two of those killed were officers and the other seven were soldiers,” said Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. “The car they were traveling and their weapons have gone missing, too.”
Wali said it was not clear who was behind the attack but a Taleban spokesman said their fighters were responsible.
“Our Mujahedeen killed the soldiers in an ambush,” Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The US military said seven Taleban rebels also died on Thursday during a US helicopter raid in the southeastern province of Khost after five Afghan soldiers were wounded in an ambush. Afghan officials said their forces killed six more Taleban guerrillas after the ambush. A Taleban spokesman said five Taleban fighters died.
A US military statement said there were no casualties among US-led forces. Helmand was a bastion of the Taleban until they were driven from power in late 2001 and it is also one of Afghanistan’s major drug producing areas. Last week, gunmen killed two Afghan aid workers and stole their vehicle in the province.
Wali said the Taleban also killed an Afghan soldier and wounded three others in an attack on their post in a mountainous area near the eastern city of Jalalabad yesterday. Taleban activity has eased over the winter, and US-led forces operating in the south and southeast have kept up the pressure on Afghanistan’s vanquished rulers following their failure to disrupt an historic presidential election in October.
Also on Thursday, the Taleban attacked a government convoy in southeastern Khost province, injuring five Afghan security force personnel but losing 10 of their own fighters, the US military said in an e-mailed statement.
The five Afghans were injured in the initial Taleban ambush near an Afghan-Pakistani border post, and three insurgents were killed and one injured when Afghan government forces gave chase.
“Hours later, two coalition helicopters were surveying the ambush area and received small arms fire. One of the helicopters returned fire, resulting in the death of seven more insurgents,” the statement added.
