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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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55 militants killed in battle in Afghanistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-23 20:57 The Afghan Defense Ministry said its soldiers counted the bodies of 94 militants after a joint operation with NATO forces Wednesday in Arghandab, a valley just outside the southern city of Kandahar. Outgunned militants have turned increasingly to laying bombs for passing convoys of government or foreign troops. The coalition said Monday that NATO troops spotted four militants laying a bomb by a road in Nangarhar, another eastern province. After a gunbattle, a coalition helicopter fired on the militants, killing one of them, spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said. The troops pursued the other three and discovered a cache of bomb-making materials. Perry said he had no reports of civilian casualties. However, Zalmay Dadak, mayor of Khogyani district, said coalition fire during the overnight operation also hit a house in a village, killing a man and a 4-year-old boy. Hundreds of villagers blocked the road in protest for several hours Monday. Mohammed Wali, a village elder, said the father and son were asleep in their house when a projectile hit the roof. Two other homes were hit, killing more than a dozen cows, he said. "We are asking President (Hamid) Karzai and the parliament to get serious about this kind of thing. Otherwise the consequences (for foreign troops) will be the same as for the Russians," he said, a reference to the humbling of Soviet troops by Afghan rebels in the 1980s. Abdul Mohammed, a senior provincial police official, also said one militant and two civilians were believed dead. Civilians are regularly killed in clashes between militants and security forces as well as bearing the brunt of insurgent suicide bombings. Coalition and NATO commanders insist they take all reasonable precautions. They blame militants for launching attacks from family homes. However, they also face criticism for using heavy firepower in residential areas. Elsewhere, police said insurgents fired rockets toward an outpost of security forces Sunday in eastern Kunar province, but hit a house and wounded a judge and two children. Provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal also said three trucks carrying supplies to coalition forces in Kunar were ambushed and burned Sunday. |
