Fourteen Afghan security guards were killed in a clash with US-led troops, a provincial governor said yesterday, but the military said that they were suspected militants who fired first.
Three destroyed vehicles remaining at the scene after the fighting in the eastern province of Khost late on Sunday were scorched and pocked with bullet holes, a reporter said.
Khost Governor Arsala Jamal said the men were security guards for a road construction company, rejecting suggestions from the US-led coalition that the men were anti-government militants.
PHOTO: AFP
“None of them is alive to say how it happened ... But I know they were not Taliban. They were security guards working for US$250 a month,” Jamal said.
Locals said they had seen men in the vehicles raise their arms in a surrender-like gesture before they were fired on.
The US Forces Afghanistan said its troops had stopped three suspicious-looking vehicles, and the occupants had climbed out and opened fire on them.
“There were three vehicles, they got out with weapons and started firing. We returned fire,” Colonel Greg Julian said, adding the men were carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
“The helicopter was an overwatch and when the suspects started firing, we fired back and the helicopter also fired on the vehicles,” he said. “Anybody that is going to fire on the coalition is not necessarily a friend of the Afghan government.”
The clash took place about 12km northeast of the provincial capital, also called Khost, and about 2km from an international military base.
The US military said it was looking into the incident with the Afghan Interior Ministry and had investigators on the scene.
After the troops returned fire, there were explosions in the vehicles, it said in a statement.
“Numerous ammunition belts and small-arms weapons were recovered from the vehicles,” the statement said.
There are tens of thousands of international soldiers in Afghanistan to help the government fight an insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.
There have been dozens of incidents in which international troops have been accused of killing Afghan security forces or civilians, sometimes by mistake or after false intelligence.
The foreign forces have also said militants deliberately operate among civilians for their own protection.
There was a similar incident late last month in which the US military said it had killed several insurgents in the province of Ghazni but local officials said the men were civilian security guards, 23 of whom were killed.
An investigation into that incident was still under way but the men had opened fire first and were armed with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, which were not authorized for security guards, Julian said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the