Afghan army troops and US-led forces killed at least nine militants including two of their commanders in western Afghanistan, while eight other rebels were killed in a clash with Afghan and NATO forces in a southern region, officials said yesterday.
Mullah Dastigir and eight of his fighters were killed in a US military airstrike in Darya-ye-Morghab village in western Badghis Province, close to border with Turkmenistan on Sunday night, the US military said in a statement.
“Once the exact location of the militants was confirmed, forces engaged the target compound with a precision airstrike, destroying a building and killing the militants inside,” it said.
PHOTO: AFP
The defence ministry said that 12 rebels including two of their commanders, Mullah Dastagir and Mullah Baz Mohammad, were killed in the operation.
Taliban spokesmen were not available to confirm the incident. Because of the remoteness of the area, it is difficult to verify claimed death tolls independently.
Both the US and Afghan defence ministry statement said that the dead militants were involved in an ambush against Afghan forces in November last year in the region that left 13 Afghan soldiers dead.
Meanwhile, General Mohaiyodin Ghori, an Afghan army commander in the southern region, said his troops backed by NATO forces killed eight militants in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand Province on Sunday.
The clash took place in the Khoshal area of the district after the joint patrol of Afghan and NATO forces received fire from militants in the area, he said.
The bodies of the militants along with their weapons were left behind on the battlefield, Ghori said, adding that there were no casualties among the combined forces.
The incident in Helmand Province happened on the same day that NATO announced the deaths of two of its soldiers, who were killed in two separate military actions in the southern region.
The militants have steadily gained power and extended their writ to larger swathes of the country in the past three years. They turned last year into the bloodiest year since 2001.
More than 5,000 people — mostly insurgents, but including nearly 300 international soldiers — were killed in conflict last year.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese