A rchive Date
[ 05-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Afghanistan ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/06/05/104220-ap.html
Many dead in Taliban, Afghan fight
Thu, June 5, 2003
POPULZAI, Afghanistan (AP) - The bodies of four Taliban fighters killed in a fierce battle with Afghan government troops lay along the side of a dirt road leading into this tiny southern hamlet on Thursday, already covered in dust after a day of sandstorms.
The men and 36 other Taliban suspects were killed in nine hours of fighting Wednesday in three tiny villages north of Spinboldak, near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. It was one of the deadliest exchanges between Taliban and government troops since the hardline religious government was overthrown in late 2001.
Fazaluddin Agha, district chief in Spinboldak, said about 100 troops loyal to Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai took part in the fighting, and that no Taliban suspects escaped the onslaught.
"This is the first time that we have killed this many Taliban," Agha told The Associated Press on Thursday. "We killed everyone. None of the Taliban escaped."
Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for the Kandahar governor, said the latest fighting in the province did not involve soldiers from the new Afghan National army, which now numbers between 4,000 and 5,000 men, but is still mostly deployed around the presidential palace in Kabul.
He said that U.S. Special Forces were also not involved in the fighting, but did help bring some of the injured Afghan soldiers to their main southern base at Kandahar for treatment.
In Populzai, 10 kilometres north of Spinboldak and where most of the fighting took place, the streets were deserted Thursday. Not a single man was visible in the tiny town of about 50 mud-and-brick homes.
One woman that ventured outside said villagers heard the fighting but did not know what was going on. The bodies of the four Taliban, all shot to death and covered in a thin layer of dust, were strewn across a road about five kilometres outside town.
"We heard the bullets and the rockets, but we did not leave our house to see what was happening. Even my husband and brother stayed inside," said the woman who would not give her name. In traditional rural Afghanistan, many women are frightened to talk to men they do not know.
Wali Jan, a soldier who took part in the fighting, said soldiers had been searching for the Taliban since a shooting incident Tuesday at a nearby checkpost.
"We were chasing these Taliban all night," Jan said, speaking from the nearby village of Nimakai.
At about 10 a.m., local time, on Wednesday, the soldiers tracked the Taliban to a six-room mud home in Nimakai. As they began to surround it, the Taliban fighters opened fire, killing six soldiers.
The soldiers returned fire, killing one Taliban fighter, Jan said. The rest fled toward Populzai, where the main fighting took place. In all, 40 Taliban fighters and seven local Afghan soldiers died in the fighting.
The mud and brick house in Nimakai was heavily damaged, with scores of bullet marks on the walls and several larger holes caused by rockets.
Like Populzai, the town of 30 small homes was largely deserted.
The few residents on the streets, mostly old men, described the fighting as fierce.
Abdul Qarim, 70, said most working-age men in the village have jobs across the border in nearby Pakistan and come back only sporadically. Women and children were either not around or behind closed doors.
The area in southern Afghanistan has been a hotbed of anti-government activity. Remnants of the Taliban, al-Qaida fugitives, and fighters loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have been blamed for several attacks in the area. They frequently engage government troops in small scale exchanges before slipping across the border into Pakistan.
But Qarim claimed the villagers had no idea that there were Taliban fighters in their midst.
"These Taliban came at night and we didn't know about it until the fighting began," he said.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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