Thirteen Taliban killed in US raid in Afghanistan
Pakistan Times Monitoring Report

KABUL (Afghanistan): Afghan and US forces searching for a kidnapped election candidate have killed 13 suspected rebels and arrested 44 others in a raid on a Taliban hideout, local officials said Monday.

The violence on Sunday in the southern province and former Taliban enclave of Kandahar further raises security fears before September 18’s parliamentary elections, which the ousted regime has vowed to disrupt.

Kandahar governor Assadullah Khaled said on Monday that “13 Taliban were killed as a result of aerial bombing” in the mountains between Ghorak and Khakrez districts, while 44 rebels were arrested.

Defence ministry spokesman General Mohammed Zahir Azimi said one Afghan soldier was wounded when helicopter-borne US and Afghan forces raided the alleged rebel den. He said he had no details of Taliban casualties but confirmed the arrests, adding: “They were arrested armed, which indicates they are Taliban.”

Recap

Taliban fighters abducted the candidate as well as a district governor and his three guards in Ghorak on Friday. They later claimed to have killed the five.

Candidate Mohammed Yaqoob, the governor of Ghorak district, Haji Mohammed Nawab and the three police guards were abducted from a road 90 kilometers (56 miles) northwest of Kandahar city.

“As of yet we have not been able to find the bodies of the five kidnapped people,” defence spokesman Azimi said.

US military spokesman Cindy Moore said the operation involving US forces was still ongoing and confirmed that at least 40 “enemy combatants” had been detained.

“For the security of the operation it would not be approperiate to discuss the details. However it is quite common that we would utilize helicopters and other planes,” she said.

The Taliban, who were toppled by US-led forces in late 2001, have pledged to disrupt the elections and more than 1,000 people have died in violence so far this year.

At the weekend a bomb killed a parliamentary candidate while eight policemen, two militants and a civilian were killed in other incidents.

Candidate Habibullah Khan, from the southeastern province of Helmand, was severely injured by a landmine planted outside his house early Sunday, police said. He died later in hospital.

Also in Helmand suspected Taliban militants killed a police chief, his son and three bodyguards in an ambush which left two rebels dead.

In the southern province of Zabul four Afghan policemen were killed in two separate attacks.

Foreigners have also been targeted in recent weeks. On Saturday British security worker David Addison, who had been kidnapped by the Taliban on Wednesday, was found dead in the western province of Farah.

Officials confirmed the same day that two missing Japanese tourists had been shot dead in the south. The Taliban denied responsibility for killing the pair.●