KABUL, 25 March 2005 — A Taleban militant was killed in a firefight with US-led forces in southeast Afghanistan along with another six people including two children and a woman, the US military said yesterday.
Raz Mohammed, described by a US commander as a “high-level Taleban”, was killed on Tuesday in the gunbattle with Afghan and US-led forces in Paktika province, which has long been a hotbed of rebels from the ousted regime. “Coalition troops were fired on by Raz Mohammed and other Taleban forces when they attempted to capture Mohammed, who was wanted for questioning,” the US military said in a statement. Two other militants also died, it added.
An Afghan woman and two children were also killed during the firefight at Mohammed’s village, the statement said, along with an Afghan soldier supporting coalition forces.
Another child was wounded and treated by US coalition medics, evacuated and was in a stable condition, it added, while a second Afghan working with the coalition was also injured.
An investigation was ongoing into the incident, the statement said.
The US military leads a coalition force of more than 20,000 troops, most of whom are hunting Taleban loyalists in south and southeast Afghanistan.
The Afghan government is spearheading an arms-for-amnesty offer for Taleban fighters who have been waging an insurgency since the hard-line regime was toppled in late 2001 but the revolt rumbles on.
Taleban remnants attacked three Afghan checkpoints near the Pakistani border late Tuesday night and fired a string of rockets at the US base in Salerno in the neighboring southeastern province of Khost.
At least five people were killed and 32 wounded last Thursday when two bombs ripped through the southern city and former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid her first visit to the country.
Meanwhile, the Afghan electoral body said yesterday the upcoming parliamentary elections in the war-torn country will be the most challenging yet for the international community to stage.
However, the body said it predicts the next vote, scheduled for Sept. 18, will run better than the presidential elections conducted last October.
“Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections are much complicated than the recent presidential vote,” Peter Erban, chief electoral officer of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) told reporters in Kabul.
“I believe that these elections would probably be the most challenging that the international community has ever helped with,” Erban said. He acknowledged that just as other first elections following conflicts around the world, these too will have imperfections.
“One of the great challenges in this election without doubt will be the fact that we have 34 separate provinces, each of them with their own elections,” Erban said.
In each of the provinces, there will be two elections, one for the provincial council and one for Wolesi-Jirga (the lower house). This means there will be 68 different ballots, some of which will contain hundreds of candidates, he said. Despite the fact that the Afghan government has postponed the parliamentary elections at least twice, Erban said the body was still pressed for time.
