NATO bombs Taliban stronghold, scores killed

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan)—NATO-led warplanes bombed a Taliban command post and a militant leader’s vehicle in separate airstrikes, killing a number of insurgents, the alliance said.
The two raids by International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) jets came amid a fresh anti-insurgent operation in a Taliban-dominated pocket of southern Kandahar province which was launched last week.
In the first attack overnight “ISAF forces launched a precision airstrike against a known insurgent command and logistics post in an isolated area of the Panjwayi district,” the force said in a statement. It did not give details of casualties, but an ISAF military official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that “a number of Taliban were killed in the air raid.”
The official could not provide an exact figure, saying the casualties were being assessed. Meanwhile NATO aircraft targeted a “local insurgent leader” in the nearby Zahre district of Kandahar province later on Tuesday, another ISAF statement said. “ISAF forces waited until the well-known insurgent leader, travelling with a group of armed insurgents, moved out of a built-up area before targeting them,” spokesman Squadron Leader David Marsh was quoted as saying. “The vehicle, along with the insurgents, was destroyed immediately with no collateral damage,” it said, without giving numbers of insurgent deaths.
The airstrikes were in support of ISAF’s “Operation Baaz Tsuka” (Falcon’s Summit), which was launched on Friday by hundreds of ISAF troops and a similar number of Afghan security forces at the weekend near Panjwayi. Some 30 Taliban rebels including two commanders were killed on December 13 in a similar raid in the same area, a known stronghold of the Taliban, the provincial governor said on Sunday.
In mid-September NATO forces carried out “Operation Medusa,” during which ISAF claimed to have killed more than 1,000 rebels and cleared the orchard-lined valley of Taliban guerrillas. Ahead of the new offensive ISAF dropped leaflets on insurgent positions warning them to leave the area before troops forced them out.
Despite being toppled in late 2001 by US-led forces and Afghan warlords, remnants of the ultra-Islamic 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 and suicide bombings this year, the bloodiest since the fall of the Taliban regime. The militants told villagers that the men had been spying on the Taliban, and said the killings were a lesson for others cooperating with the government or NATO forces, he said. Government and NATO officials could not immediately confirm the killings.
Elsewhere, seven Taliban fighters including a regional commander were arrested Monday night in Zabul province, said provincial police Chief Noor Mohammad Paktil.—Agencies