Hundreds of American soldiers launched an air assault in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, part of a new operation the US military is calling its biggest since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime two years ago.
Soldiers from the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment stormed into an area east of Khost, a restive town along the border with Pakistan that has seen several recent attacks on coalition personnel, said Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, a US military spokesman.
"We came in with helicopters," he said of the maneuver, part of the newly launched Operation Avalanche. "We're trying to interdict along the border."
US and Afghan officials have long charged that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaeda allies flee back across the mountainous border into Pakistan after launching attacks.
Hilferty gave no further details, including whether there were any US casualties.
Operation Avalanche, which Hilferty said began Dec. 2, involves some 2,000 soldiers in four battalions, and is being billed as the largest undertaken since the Afghan war that ousted the Taliban ended in late 2001.
Hilferty said the operation was designed to root out insurgents before the brutally cold winter months.
"We're trying to get them before the winter sets in," he said.
Hilferty also issued the military's bluntest-yet acknowledgment that it was responsible for a blundered air assault on Saturday that killed nine children as they were playing in a field in Hutala village, 150km southwest of the capital.
"We admit that we were responsible," he said. Hilferty added the military could still not confirm whether it had killed the intended target, a Taliban official named Mullah Wazir.
Also see story:
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2