US soldiers killed seven Taliban insurgents in a successful pre-dawn raid to rescue a kidnapped doctor from the US in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, the NATO force in the war-torn country said.
The mission was launched when intelligence showed that Dilip Joseph was in “imminent danger of injury or death,” NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
Joseph was abducted on Wednesday by Taliban insurgents in the Surobi district of Kabul Province.
“Today’s mission exemplifies our unwavering commitment to defeating the Taliban,” said General John Allen, the commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. “I’m proud of the American and Afghan forces that planned, rehearsed and successfully conducted this operation. Thanks to them, Dr Joseph will soon be rejoining his family and loved ones.”
Joseph was now “undergoing evaluations,” the statement said, without giving further details.
A security source told reporters that the doctor had been involved in building clinics in Afghanistan, but details of his capture were not immediately available.
Hazrat Mohammad Haqbeen, the district governor of Surobi told reporters that the man was kidnapped along with an Afghan colleague who was released in return for a ransom earlier in the week.
And “today the American national was freed in an operation. We don’t know the details of the operation,” Haqbeen told reporters yesterday.
He said the men were kidnapped in Surobi, but were held in a village in the Qarghayi district of the neighboring province of Laghman. The governor said the US citizen was visiting a clinic when captured.
An ISAF spokesman said the rescue had been launched when multiple intelligence sources indicated that he was in immediate danger.
“We felt we had to act now,” he told reporters.
Seven of the doctor’s captors were killed in the operation, which involved combined US and Afghan forces, he said.
He gave no further details of where the doctor had been held or on the rescue operation itself, saying they could be announced later in the day.
Surobi outside Kabul had been under the control of French troops until April this year, when the responsibility for its security was handed to Afghan forces as part of France’s accelerated withdrawal from the country.
France ended its combat mission in Afghanistan last month, two years before allied nations contributing to the 100,000-strong US-led NATO force are due to depart.
Surobi, about 50km east of Kabul and along a key highway linking the capital to Pakistan, experiences sporadic Taliban-linked terrorism.
General Emam Nazar, the former commander of the 3rd Brigade of the Afghan army, told reporters in April that between 80 and 100 insurgents were based in Surobi.
“Sometimes our enemies appear on the highway, but they can’t resist us. Our forces smash them. It happened several times but they never got out of it alive,” he added.
When French troops were stationed there, two French journalists were abducted in December 2009 and held for more than 500 days before being released in a secret deal that reportedly involved ransom.
Westerners are a prize target for the Taliban Islamists, who have waged an 11-year insurgency since being toppled from power in a US-led invasion in 2001. Regular gangsters not linked to the rebels are also involved in the kidnappings.
In June, NATO special forces rescued two foreign women working for a Swiss-based charity who had been kidnapped and held in a cave in Afghanistan’s remote and mountainous northern Badakhshan Province. Five captors were killed in the raid.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
RSS