80 Taliban killed in Afghan air strikes

KABUL—Nearly 80 Taliban rebels were killed in a series of air raids by international military forces near eastern Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, a provincial government spokesman said Sunday.
About 65 were killed in a single air assault late Saturday in eastern Paktia province on a “large group of Taliban,” said Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration. Four others were killed in a second assault targeting a vehicle carrying rebels in the same region of the province, Patan district, and four in a nearby area, he said.
Another three were killed in an air strike near Gardez, capital of the restive province, he said. “Altogether 76 Taliban were killed in separate air strikes by coalition forces,” Darvish told reporters.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and separate US-led coalition could only immediately confirm the last incident which they said was targeted at three militants spotted planting a bomb.
Casualty tolls in battles between insurgents and Afghan security forces backed by their international allies are often difficult to establish with officials regularly issuing different numbers that can not be verified. The Taliban, toppled from government six years ago, are the main militant group behind a spiralling insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. A provincial police official said Sunday that airstrikes nearly 70 Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. Neither the U.S.-led coalition nor NATO’s International Security Assistance Force could confirm the high number of casualties, and it was impossible to independently check the claim because of the remote location of the battle site.
Paktia provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai said insurgents attacked police Saturday night in the Pathan district and were targeted by airstrikes from NATO or coalition helicopters.
Alizai said the bodies of 69 dead militants were left in the area. Among those killed were four Taliban who were traveling with two cars full of explosives and ammunition, he said. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said two vehicles, two horses and a camel carrying weapons for fighters were also targeted in the battle.
NATO’s ISAF, meanwhile, confirmed that airstrikes targeted and killed three Taliban militants who were planting mines in nearby Gardez, the main city in Paktia province. It did not have any information on the other airstrikes that were said to have killed 69 fighters. More than 6,000 people have died in 2007 in insurgency-related violence, a record number, according to figures from Afghan and Western officials. Most of those killed were militants.
A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials.
The evaluation this month by the National Security Council followed an in-depth review in late 2006 that laid out a series of projected improvements for this year, including progress in security, governance and the economy. But the latest assessment concluded that only “the kinetic piece” — individual battles against Taliban fighters — has shown substantial progress, while improvements in the other areas continue to lag, a senior administration official said.
This judgment reflects sharp differences between U.S. military and intelligence officials on where the Afghan war is headed. Intelligence analysts acknowledge the battlefield victories, but they highlight the Taliban’s unchallenged expansion into new territory, an increase in opium poppy cultivation and the weakness of the government of President Hamid Karzai as signs that the war effort is deteriorating.

—Agencies