Up to 50 Taliban killed in Afghan clashes

September 14, 2009

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) –

Up to 50 Taliban fighters have been killed in Afghanistan's western Farah province after clashes that left seven Afghan and two US soldiers dead, government officials said on Sunday.

Taliban fighters fired mortar rounds at a military-escorted convoy of humanitarian supplies in Farah province on Saturday, sparking clashes, explosions and an air strike by NATO forces helping fight the Taliban resistance here.

"The information we received from the ANA (Afghan National Army) is that in this clash seven ANA soldiers were killed and 12 were wounded," Farah governor Rohul Amin Amin told AFP.

"Around 40 to 50 Taliban were killed. Two American soldiers were killed. One ISAF vehicle was damaged," he said, referring to the NATO-led coalition, the International Security Assistance Force.

"NATO airplanes then bombed, and the information we have received was that the casualties were not significant from the airstrike.

The Taliban fighters who were killed were because of ground clashes with the ANA and ISAF.

The defence ministry said that Taliban fighters were killed in the incident, but added it had no reports of civilian casualties.

An ANA spokesman had already confirmed their soldiers' deaths, while a US Forces spokesman said on Saturday their two service members died in a blast in Farah, which has seen increasing levels of (war attacks).

Local officials have also said that two women were killed in the same incident when one of the mortars fired by the Taliban struck their house.

In other attacks, the defence ministry said five ANA soldiers were killed in clashes and mine blasts in southeastern Ghanzi province.

Eleven more Taliban fighters were killed by foreign and local forces in northern Kunduz province, the defence ministry said in a statement, while in western Herat, two Taliban and one policeman died in clashes, a police chief said.

During other fighting in eastern Paktika province, four militants were killed, the defence ministry said.

Official: Dozens of Taliban fighters killed after US deaths

By Rahim Fayez, Associated Press Writer –

September 14, 2009

KABUL –

A battle in western Afghanistan that included airstrikes killed dozens of Taliban fighters after an ambush (which) left three U.S. troops dead, an Afghan official said Sunday.

The hours-long battle took place Saturday in the western province of Farah after a complex attack that killed three Americans and seven Afghan troops, said Afghan army spokesman Maj. Abdul Basir Ghori.

The Taliban fighters ambush involved two roadside bombs, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman, said Sunday. Mathias confirmed that fighting in the west continued for six to eight hours after the ambush, but she could not provide any casualty figures.

"The combined ISAF and Afghan force was receiving significant small-arms, RPG and indirect fire throughout that time frame," she said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Ghori said about 50 Taliban fighters were killed in Saturday's battle, but no other Afghan officials could immediately confirm that figure.

NATO aircraft bombed areas where Taliban fighters were firing from, Mathias said.

"We are not sure right now how many people those munitions killed," she said.

During the clash, a rocket (allegedly fired by Taliban fighters hit a home and killed a woman and a teenage girl, said Afghan police spokesman Raouf Ahmadi.

The fighting took place in the Bala Baluk district of Farah province, a region controlled by Taliban fighters that has been the site of huge battles in the past, some that have caused high numbers of civilian casualties.

Saturday's attacks came the same day Afghan officials said 50 civilians, security forces and Taliban fighters were killed in a spate of attacks around Afghanistan, including 20 noncombatants killed in two roadside bomb explosions.

Violence has risen steadily across Afghanistan the last three years, and Taliban fighters now control wide swaths of the countryside. The U.S. and NATO have a record number of troops in the country, and the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is soon likely to request thousands more. 

Support for the eight-year war is waning in the United States and Europe as troop deaths rise and Taliban attacks spike. A record number of U.S. and NATO troops have died in Afghanistan already this year.

(This version CORRECTS that police official said militant rocket hit house, instead of NATO weapon.)

5 U.S. troops, dozens of Afghans killed in wave of attacks

The U.S. troops are killed in two separate attacks. Other assaults are scattered across the country, in Oruzgan, Kunduz, Farah, Kunar and Nangarhar provinces; many of the dead are civilians.

By Mark Magnier
LAT, September 13, 2009

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -

A wave of attacks swept across Afghanistan on Saturday, leaving five American troops and dozens of Afghans dead and underscoring the Taliban's growing reach. The bloodshed comes as Western allies try to shore up stability amid an election process increasingly marred by fraud allegations.

Taliban attacks had long been concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the troubled nation, but in recent weeks have spread to the normally quieter northern and western regions, with Saturday a case in point.

Two American troops on patrol died in eastern Afghanistan when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, according to a NATO statement. Three more Americans were killed in an attack in western Afghanistan, a military spokesman said.

No immediate details were given on the branch of service to which the victims belonged.

In the deadliest attacks, a roadside bomb in the southern province of Oruzgan hit two vehicles, killing 14 civilians, the Interior Ministry said. In the northern province of Kunduz, seven policemen died in an attack on their post, with two more missing and feared captured by militants.

On other fronts, six civilians died in a roadside bombing in the southern province of Kandahar; a guard and a child were killed when two suicide bombers attacked a detention center; and four policemen were killed in an attack on a patrol in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Six guards with a security firm were killed when fighters attacked their office in nearby Kunar province.

Seven Afghan soldiers in the western province of Farah were killed after a lengthy battle with Taliban fighters, and three civilians died when a rocket struck their home, according to news reports.

mark.magnier@latimes.com