A toddler died after she was struck by a gunshot from a NATO soldier while troops killed four dozen Taliban in two days of battles in Afghanistan's top opium-growing area, officials said on Saturday.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it deeply regretted the death of the child in the southern province of Helmand on Friday.
Helmand provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said the girl was two years old and the incident had happened outside her home.
An ISAF soldier fired a single shot to stop a vehicle from coming too close to a military patrol, the force said in a statement. The bullet allegedly ricocheted and hit the child although the incident was being investigated, it said.
"Some time later, a family brought a child suffering from a gunshot wound to the head to an ISAF base for medical attention. Unfortunately, the child died," it said.
Several civilians have been killed in Afghanistan this year by warning shots fired to stop people approaching international security force checkpoints and patrols.
Troops are the main target of Taliban suicide bombs, often delivered by car or fixed to a person who launches himself at the soldiers.
The separate US-led coalition, which works alongside ISAF and the Afghan security forces, said meanwhile it had killed around four dozen Taliban fighters in two straight days of fighting elsewhere in Helmand.
Nearly three dozen were killed on Saturday and more than a dozen on Friday in fighting in the Musa Qala area, an insurgent hotbed.
Both battles were sparked by ambushes which Afghan and coalition soldiers beat back with return fire and help from war planes, the force said.
The fighting was "part of a larger operation to disrupt terrorist activities in the Helmand Province," it said in a statement.
Helmand produces most of Afghanistan's opium which the UN says accounts for up 93 percent of the world's supply.
The top US commander in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, said this week he estimated up to 40 percent of the Taliban's income comes from opium, the raw ingredient of heroin.
The Taliban have been in control of the Musa Qala district center for months and officials have said the small town has become a headquarters for rebels who are assisted by foreign "jihadists" in their bid to topple the US-backed Kabul government.
The Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001 when they were removed by the coalition for not surrendering their al-Qaeda allies following the Sept. 11 attacks.
They are leading a campaign of daily attacks joined by other Islamist outfits.
In other bloodshed, two policemen were killed and four wounded on Saturday when a bomb blew up their pick-up in the eastern province of Paktia and a tribale elder was also shot dead, provincial police chief Ismatullah Alizai said, blaming the Taliban.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS