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В. Кашин
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18.05.2006 15:30:07
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Локальные конфликты;
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В Афганистане становится горячо
Добрый день!
Согласно сообщению AFP произошедшие два столкновения - самые серьезные за последние несколько месяцев. Для разгрома талибов пришлось применить артиллерию и вертолеты.Убита канадская солдатка, 13 афганских полицейских и до 60 талибов (чего их, супостатов, жалеть). Одновременно в Афганистане убит сотрудник госдепа и ранен его местный переводчик.
by Nasrat ShoibThu May 18, 4:09 AM ET
Taliban rebels have fought two fierce battles with coalition and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan, leaving 13 police, a Canadian soldier and nearly 60 insurgents dead, officials said.
British gunship helicopters and Canadian artillery were called in to lend close air support during one of the clashes, which came weeks before NATO-led peacekeepers are due to take over operations in the troubled region.
In a separate incident on the other side of the country in western Afghanistan, a US anti-narcotics adviser was killed Thursday when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed car into his Land Cruiser.
The violence was the worst for months in Afghanistan, where remnants of the ultra-Islamic Taliban continue to wage a bloody insurgency four years after the regime was ousted by US-led forces.
One battle raged in Helmand province for several hours late Wednesday after police stormed a district on a tip-off that Taliban fighters had massed there, interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.
Thirteen police were killed, seven wounded and two missing after the hours-long fighting in Musa Qala district, Stanizai said in the capital Kabul.
"Around 40 Taliban were killed and they have left behind the bodies of 10," he said. The militants often take the bodies of their dead away with them.
"Five Taliban with a Land Cruiser vehicle were captured," he said, adding that five others were captured in a sweep after the battle.
Meanwhile Afghan security forces backed by Canadian coalition troops fought Taliban fighters for most of the day Wednesday and into Thursday in neighbouring Kandahar province.
A Canadian soldier was killed in the battle Wednesday when her unit came under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, becoming the first Canadian woman to die in combat since World War II.
"Eighteen Taliban have been killed and 35 are detained," coalition spokesman Major Quentin Innis told AFP Thursday.
"In the afternoon, villagers told the coalition forces that Taliban were hiding in a mosque. The coalition cordoned it off and the ANA (Afghan National Army) went in," he said.
The operation backed by British choppers and Canadian heavy weapons was ongoing, Innis said. The battle was centred around Panjwayi district, about 24 kilometres (15 miles) west of Kandahar city, where fighting also erupted Sunday.
Stanizai put the number of captured Taliban at 45.
Captain Nichola Goddard became the 16th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since the force arrived in 2001 to join the hunt for Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents waging an anti-government insurgency. A senior Canadian diplomat has also been killed.
The Canadian military has about 2,300 soldiers in Kandahar province. They operate in some of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan and have been attacked several times, including by suicide bombers.
Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban movement that rose to control most of war-weary Afghanistan by 1996 before being toppled by a US-led coalition in late 2001 when they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The Canadian force was scheduled to leave Afghanistan in February 2007 but lawmakers voted Wednesday to extend its mission to 2009. Afghanistan's government welcomed the move.
Separately on Thursday a US citizen working as a police training contractor for a State Department anti-drugs agency died and an Afghan interpreter was wounded in the suicide car bombing in the western city of Herat.
Such attacks are rare in Herat, which is near the Iranian border and is regarded as more stable and less conservative than restive southern and eastern Afghanistan.
С уважением, Василий Кашин