US Marines tracked down a band of insurgents in eastern Afghanistan and sparked a battle that left about 23 rebels and two American troops dead, the US military said yesterday, in the latest sign of a revived Taliban-led insurgency.
American warplanes also joined the five-hour clash with about 25 insurgents on Sunday evening in Laghman, a province of an eastern opium-producing region where US forces have regularly fought with militants.
Acting on intelligence about the rebels' whereabouts, US Marines "located the insurgents and an engagement ensued," a statement from the US military said. "Two US Marines were killed."
PHOTO: AFP
The names of the dead were withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.
A second statement said "two insurgents were confirmed killed and another 21 suspected dead."
There was no word on any wounded from either side.
The military said the Marines initially came under attack with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades from insurgents who split into two groups, one of which fled to a village and the other to a cave on a nearby ridge.
The two Marines died while clearing the cave after A-10 ground attack planes pounded the rebels holed up inside, the statement said. It didn't explain further.
Militants opposed to the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai have made good on pledges to ramp up their three-year-old insurgency after the melt of the winter's snow, carrying out a string of assaults and bombings that have killed dozens of Afghan and US troops and government officials.
However, they have suffered heavy casualties, particularly where American warplanes have caught them in large groups on open ground.
The Marines died days after the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan in nine months, when US and Afghan forces including American warplanes clashed with large groups of insurgents in two southern provinces last week.
Sixty-four rebels, nine Afghan soldiers and an Afghan policeman were reported killed, while six American troops were among the wounded.
American commanders insist they are grinding the insurgents down and persuading villagers in a belt of territory along the Pakistani border to stop sheltering them.
They have also suggested that the currently 18,000-strong US-led force could be trimmed after Sept. 18 parliamentary elections supposed to crown the country's democratic rebirth, depending on the success of a reconciliation plan which has prompted a string of former Taliban allies to give up the fight.
Sunday's deaths bring to 143 the number of American troops killed in and around Afghanistan since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, according to US Defense Department statistics. The last US soldier previously killed in action in Afghanistan died April 26 when his unit was ambushed in Uruzgan Province.
In an attempt to bring about national reconciliation, Karzai has offered an olive branch to all but a hardcore of 150 militants accused of crimes against humanity.
Former Taliban foreign minister Mullah Wakeel Ahmed Mutawakil, who was regarded as a moderate, last week urged peace talks between Kabul and the ousted regime.
The Taliban regime was toppled after it failed to surrender its "guest" al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the US.
US-led forces are still searching for bin Laden and one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar along the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS