Taliban attack Afghan town: 19 killed
Afp, ap, Kandahar/ Kabul
Taliban rebels attacked a district town in southern Afghanistan overnight, sparking an intense battle in which 16 militants and three policemen were killed, police said yesterday. It was the second attack on the small Helmand province town of Garmser since Friday, when four Taliban and a policeman were killed in another attempt to seize the district headquarters. Taliban fighters captured the headquarters for around 48 hours in mid-July, pulling down the national flag and hoisting one that police said was of a pro-Taliban, Pakistan-based militant outfit. "Last night once again Taliban attacked Garmser district of Helmand province," provincial police chief Mohammad Nabi Mullahkhail told AFP. "The fighting continued for hours and 16 Taliban were killed. Nine Taliban bodies were left at the site of the battle and 10 Taliban were wounded," he said. The rebels sometimes take the bodies of their dead away with them. "Three police was also martyred in the incident," Mullahkhail said. Garmser is just 50km south of the Helmand capital, Lashkar Gah, the seat of the provincial government and site of a British base. The bulk of a British deployment of around 4,500 troops is based in Helmand where they have admitted to confronting some of the British army's worst and most prolonged fighting in years.
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An Afghan policeman looks at a bomb damaged car on a street in Kabul yesterday. A suicide car bomb killed a British soldier and four Afghans in Afghanistan's capital. PHOTO: AFP |
