Nine soldiers killed in ambush in Afghanistan
Pakistan Times Monitoring Report

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan): Suspected Taliban militants ambushed a vehicle carrying Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan, killing nine soldiers, a provincial official said Friday. A U.S. soldier was shot and wounded in a separate incident.

The attack on the Afghan troops occurred late Thursday in the Chakul area of Helmand province, where Taliban often target police and troops, said Haji Wali Mohammed, a spokesman for the governor.

We lost contact with the Afghan soldiers late Thursday, and their bodies were found Friday, he said, adding that authorities would hunt down and arrest the terrorists who carried out the attack. Taliban rebels immediately claimed responsibility.

Yes, the Taliban did this and we will launch more attacks against government and coalition forces, Mullah Latif Hakimi, who often speaks for the Taliban, told The Associated Press by telephone.

Also Friday, the U.S. military said one of its soldiers was shot and wounded when he and his unit came under small-arms fire while investigating a roadside bomb in neighboring Kandahar province.

Taliban have mounted a stubborn insurgency across southern and eastern Afghanistan since U.S. forces ousted the Taliban government in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden and his supporters.

Helmand, a province neighboring Kandahar, was one of the first provinces to come under the sway of Taliban in the 1980s.●