80 Taliban killed in Afghanistan

KABUL—Around 80 Taliban fighters were killed when they tried to ambush a patrol of Afghan and international soldiers in the south of Afghanistan, the US-led coalition said Sunday. The coalition said the troops were forced to call in air support when they were ambushed Saturday in the highly volatile province of Helmand.
“The combined patrol immediately returned fire, manoeuvred, and employed close air support, resulting in almost seven dozen Taliban fighters killed during a six-hour engagement,” it said in a statement. The attackers fled after the clash in the town of Musa Qala, which has been held by the Taliban since February. The statement made no reference to any coalition or civilian casualties. However, the Afghan commander for Helmand told reporters no troops were killed.
“Our initial assessment is that over 73 Taliban were killed in the direct fire and air bombing,” said Afghan general Mohaidin Ghori. “The attacks took place at different hours of the day yesterday in different locations. There have been no casualties to civilians and our forces.” International military forces helped to remove the extremist Taliban from government in late 2001 and are fighting the insurgency led by the hardline group and joined by other radical factions.
Much of the opium that funds the insurgency grows in Helmand, and last month about 2,500 NATO and Afghan troops launched a new operation to clear Taliban fighters from the southern province. Separately, several Taliban were killed by a joint Afghan and international patrol in the neighbouring province of Kandahar Saturday, the coalition said.
“The Afghan National Security forces spotted the enemies of Afghanistan before they could carry out their attack,” said spokesman Chris Belcher. “The patrol immediately engaged the Taliban element, killing several enemy fighters before they fled the area,” the coalition spokesman said. The coalition statements could not be independently verified.
Meanwhile, five police officers guarding an Indian road construction company were killed in an ambush late Saturday in Nimroz province, which shares a long border with neighbouring Iran, the provincial governor said. “Five police guards were martyred in a Taliban ambush, but there were no casualties to the company engineers or civilians,” Ghulam Dastagir Azad said.
The road connects the provincial capital Zaranj on the border with Iran to the country’s ring road. The officers killed were part of an auxiliary force that reinforces the regular police in rural parts of Afghanistan. In another incident, Taliban militants killed a former anti-Soviet commander in Gardez, the capital of eastern Paktia province, on Saturday, provincial spokesman Din Mohammad Darwaish told reporters.
Local leaders fought against the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. “Mohammad Gul was abducted by Taliban two days ago and his body was found yesterday in the area. He was an active social figure taking active part in local shuras (councils),” he said. Locals refusing to give their names said a letter from the Taliban found with the body said Gul was killed for spying for the Americans and the US-backed Afghan government.
Taliban fighters opened fire on Saturday with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades on the joint coalition and Afghan army patrol from a trench near Musa Qala in Helmand province, the most important town held by insurgents.
“The combined patrol immediately returned fire, maneuvered, and employed close air support resulting in almost seven dozen Taliban fighters killed during a six hour engagement,” the U.S. military statement said. Such large pitched battles are relatively rare in Afghanistan, where the Taliban prefer to “shoot and scoot” before air strikes can be called in.
But analysts say the insurgents are expected to fight hard to defend Musa Qala, in the north of Helmand, where they are heavily dug in after taking control of the town in February. A Taliban official in the town denied any insurgents had been killed around Musa Qala and accused foreign forces of dropping bombs on civilians.
The Taliban hanged three men in Musa Qala on Saturday, accusing them of spying for foreign forces, another Taliban official in the town said.—Agencies