Four US soldiers were killed in action in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, the latest sign of a growing militant insurgency that threatens to disrupt landmark elections due in September.
In one of the worst losses for US forces since the fall of the Taliban late in 2001, four service members assigned to a special forces unit were killed in the southern province of Zabul, scene of regular guerrilla attacks in recent months.
More than 700 people have died in violence since August, most of it blamed on Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who have declared a jihad, or holy war, against foreign and Afghan troops as well as aid organizations.
The acceleration in attacks on US and Afghan forces in the last two months is particularly worrying as the country heads toward its first-ever free vote, which the West hopes will give legitimacy to a government seen by many as a US puppet.
"Four US service members assigned to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, Afghanistan were killed in action today here in southern Afghanistan," said a brief statement from the US military.
"Names will not be released until notification of next of kin is complete," the statement said.
The four deaths bring to 90 the number of US fatalities in Afghanistan, 56 of them in combat.
A spokeswoman said there were no more details available.
In what has been a bloody week for Afghanistan, seven Afghan soldiers and four suspected Taliban fighters died in clashes in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday and two US soldiers were wounded near the Pakistani border on Thursday.
US aircraft supporting a patrol that came under fire on Tuesday in the southern province of Kandahar pounded Taliban positions, killing at least two militants, and a Norwegian peacekeeper was killed in a grenade attack in Kabul a week ago.
On Saturday, the US military announced plans to deploy the 10,000-strong Afghan National Army (ANA) across the country to secure polling and voter registration, which has lagged behind expectations partly because of security fears.
They will work alongside 20,000 US-led soldiers, 6,500 international peacekeepers restricted largely to Kabul and a growing police force, said Major-General Craig Weston.
He added that the fledgling ANA would set up four permanent garrisons in the north, south, east and west of the country to help consolidate Afghan President Hamid Karzai's control outside the capital.
Karzai and his backers in Washington have been undermined both by a militant rebellion and by regional commanders officially loyal to him but who have resisted a key nationwide disarmament program and clashed with government militia.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant