Nearly 80 Taliban fighters killed in airstrikes: Afghan Army

Afghanistan News.Net
Wednesday 27th August, 2008 (IANS)

Nearly 80 suspected alleged Taliban fighters were killed in coalition airstrikes and clashes with Afghan forces, while four Afghan policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern region, officials said Wednesday.

More than 40 suspected alleged Taliban fighters were killed in Sarobi district of southeastern province of Paktika Tuesday afternoon after the militants ambushed a police patrol in the area, Mohammad Akram Khepilwak, provincial governor told DPA.

He said five policemen were wounded and the ground forces called coalition airstrikes on the Taliban near the border with Pakistan.

'Coalition forces bombed the Taliban and killed more than 40 militants,' he said, adding that the militants' dead bodies were still on the battlefield.

Another group of Taliban fighters attacked a police patrol in Kheshawand district of the same Paktika province Wednesday morning, wounding a policeman, Khepilwak said.

He said that the police forces fought back and killed eight suspected militants.

In a separate incident, alleged Taliban fighters attacked a police post in Nad Ali district in southern Helmand province late Tuesday night, but suffered 18 fatalities, Mohammad Hussain Andewal, provincial police chief, said.

He claimed that no Afghan police forces were killed or wounded in the attack.

A suicide bomber attacked near a British military base in Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province Tuesday, killing himself and wounding three civilians, Andewal said.

British troops were not in the area when the explosion occurred, he said.

Separately, US-led coalition forces claimed Wednesday to have killed more than a dozen Taliban insurgents in volatile southern Afghanistan, while another four were detained by the combined forces elsewhere.

'The troops engaged the militants with small arms, machine guns, and close air support, killing more than a dozen alleged Taliban fighters,' the statement said.

No Afghan or coalition soldiers were hurt in the incident, the military claimed.

Due to the remoteness of the area, it was difficult to independently verify the US military's assertions.

In another incident, four police personnel were also killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Gilan district of southern Ghazni province Tuesday, Sayed Ismail Jahangir, spokesman for provincial governor said.

Afghan and US officials have accused the Taliban of having bases inside Pakistan, from where they cross the border and stage attacks on Afghan and international forces.

Afghanistan more dangerous for British soldiers than Iraq has ever been

Afghanistan News.Net
Wednesday 27th August, 2008 (ANI)
London, Aug 27 :

Afghanistan is now more dangerous for British troops than Iraq has ever been, a new report has revealed.

It shows eight out of every 1,000 UK servicemen are being killed in NATO's mission to tame the Taliban in the Afghan badlands. That is more than the coalition death rate of 7.5 per 1,000 personnel during the worst of the fighting in Iraq.

In newly pacified Baghdad and Basra, the rate is now down to less than three per 1,000, The Sun reported.

Statistics revealed by the Medical Research Council also show that for the first time, coalition soldiers are suffering more deaths in Afghanistan than Iraq - 136 compared to 134 since May.

That is despite a force, which is only a fifth the size of the 160,000 stationed in Iraq.

The figures will make grim reading for British parents whose sons and daughters have been sent to the flashpoint Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where deaths have rocketed since 2006.

The report's author Professor Sheila Bird said: "The normal fatality rate for men aged between 16 to 24 in Britain is one per 1,000. If you are a soldier in Afghanistan, you are eight times more likely to die than if you are at home.

"The statistics prove Afghanistan is consistently more dangerous than Iraq for British servicemen - not just now but even when combat was at its highest in Iraq."

The report also showed the Taliban's hidden roadside bombs are by far the biggest threat to coalition troops. Blasts account for 60 per cent of deaths, with one fatal bomb every three days.

Canada, which has a much smaller force than Britain's 8,000 troops in Helmand, is paying the highest price with 14 deaths per 1,000 servicemen.

Afghan police find body of Japanese hostage

Afghanistan News.Net
Wednesday 27th August, 2008 (IANS)

Police and Afghan villagers Wednesday found the body of a Japanese aid worker who was abducted by four armed men Tuesday in the eastern province of Nangarhar, officials said.

Kazuya Ito's death was confirmed by the aid agency that he worked for and regional officials. Japanese officials would only confirm that a body of a Japanese man had been found.

Noor Zaman, an official from Peshawar-Kai, the Japanese aid group Ito worked for, told DPA that 'the body has been seen and confirmed by our other colleagues in the area.'

Shukerullah Durani, administrative chief of Khewa district, also confirmed that the body of the hostage was found and said he had been shot.

Durani also said authorities arrested two of the kidnappers, who were from the Khewa district and belong to the Taliban network.

In Tokyo, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichita Yamamoto told a news conference Wednesday that the UN office in Afghanistan informed Japan that a body appearing to be that of a Japanese man had been found by local police, the Kyodo News agency reported.

But the Japanese government had not been able to confirm whether it is that of Ito, Yamamoto said.

Ito, 31, and his Afghan driver were abducted Tuesday as he was on his way to inspect an irrigation project in the area. The driver was released later Tuesday by the kidnappers.

Taliban militants on Tuesday reportedly claimed responsibility for the abduction and said that the Japanese hostage had been killed during a clash between Taliban fighters and Afghan security forces.

Ito had been conducting volunteer work as an agricultural specialist for Peshawar-kai since December 2003. The non-governmental organization has been assisting in digging wells and building irrigation systems.

Alleged Taliban fighters have stepped up their attacks on aid organizations and have carried out kidnappings in the past. Abduction for ransom by criminal gangs has also become common in Afghanistan.

At least 24 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, including three Western woman workers for the New York-based International Rescue Committee, who were shot dead by Taliban militants on Aug 13 outside Kabul, an Afghan aid coordinating

agency said.

In 2005, two Japanese teachers were found shot to death in the southern province of Kandahar. The two had been on their way from the Pakistani border to Kabul.