US-backed Afghan forces have killed at least 33 militants in three days of fighting against suspected Taliban insurgents in violence-wracked southeast Afghanistan, the US military said yesterday.
Afghan and US-led coalition forces have been engaged in a major operation against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda bases in the mountains of the Daychopan district of Zabul province, 300km southwest of Kabul.
US military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis said the coalition confirmed at least 33 militants were killed in fighting between Monday and Wednesday.
Zabul governor Hafizullah Hashim said by satellite phone that up to 20 more militants were killed in eight hours of fighting on Friday but Davis was unable to confirm that death toll.
"Their bodies are scattered in the area. They [the Taliban] have been weakened and I think they cannot pose any threat to us any more," Hashim said on Friday.
"The American aircraft heavily bombed the area."
Three Afghan soldiers were wounded but not seriously.
One US Special Operations soldier died on Friday morning of injuries sustained in a fall during a night combat assault near Daychopan, the US military said.
"The injuries were sustained during an accidental fall and were not the result of hostile action. The soldier's name is being withheld pending next-of-kin notification," it said in a statement on Friday from the coalition's Bagram Air Base headquarters north of Kabul.
A US-led coalition soldier was also wounded during a firefight near Daychopan on Thursday night. The soldier, whose nationality was not disclosed, was airlifted to a US military hospital in Germany.
Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai yesterday inaugurated the central corps of the fledgling national army -- heralded as another step in the long road toward rebuilding a nation shattered by civil war.
At the ceremony at a military training ground south of Kabul, Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim also announced that he had presented to Karzai a proposal on long-delayed reforms to his ministry.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing