30 Taliban killed in NATO Afghan raid

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan)—A NATO-led airstrike in southern Afghanistan this week killed up to 30 Taliban fighters including two commanders, the governor of the troubled Kandahar province said.
Warplanes from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) bombed a compound serving as a Taliban command post in the Panjwayi district of the volatile Kandahar province on Wednesday. The alliance at the time did not provide information on casualties, saying that toll was being assessed.
“According to intelligence reports, we’ve killed 30 Taliban including some of their commanders,” Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid told a news conference on Sunday, four days after the raid.
He said Taliban regional commanders Mullah Abdul Wali and Mullah Sher Jan, and low-ranking rebel commander Mullah Abdul Nafi, were among those killed in the air raid.
Hundreds of ISAF troops backed by Afghan security forces this week launched a major operation in Panjwayi, a known Taliban stronghold where in mid-September troops fought a major battle with insurgents. More than 1,000 militants were killed in the earlier operation named “Medusa”. ISAF on Friday dropped leaflets on insurgent positions warning them to leave the area before troops force them to quit. The governor, citing security reasons, did not provide details on the latest operation, named “Baaz Tsuka”.
Despite being forced out from power five years ago, remnants of the Taliban are still active and have been carrying out fierce attacks. Some 4,000 people, including 1,000 civilians, have died in Taliban-led violence this year, the bloodiest since the toppling of their regime in late 2001.
Professor Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, head of Afghanistan’s Reconciliation Commission says that 70 Afghans are still being detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay. Speaking at a news conference in Kabul, he said: “We will try to release them, or bring them here to Afghanistan (for detention),” Mujaddedi said.
Earlier, he received seven Afghan men, who were released after years of imprisonment in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The commission assists with the release of detainees from Guantanamo and another U.S. prison at the Bagram military base north of Kabul. All seven men said they were wrongly arrested, but that they were not beaten or mistreated in any way during their imprisonment.
One of them claimed he was forced to join the Taliban, while another said he was arrested merely for being Muslim. “We had to go with the Taliban. If we didn’t go with them, they wanted money from us,” said Abdul Rehman, 46, from Helmand province.
“I didn’t have money to pay the Taliban, so I was forced to join them,” he said. “I didn’t want to.” Rehman swore he did not kill anyone or even fire any bullets. —Agencies