US Army Medevac personnel treated a US soldier injured during six days of fighting in an area of northern Afghanistan once stable. Some 700 Afghan and 50 international troops took part.
(Manpreet Romana/ AFP/ Getty Images)
Fierce fighting in north Afghanistan kills 130 insurgents
Troops deliver aid following six-day operation
US Army Medevac personnel treated a US soldier injured during six days of fighting in an area of northern Afghanistan once stable. Some 700 Afghan and 50 international troops took part.
(Manpreet Romana/ AFP/ Getty Images)
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan and international troops killed more than 130 insurgents in six days of fighting in a once-stable area of northern Afghanistan that has seen a recent spike in Taliban attacks, NATO said yesterday. It was some of the heaviest fighting in the north this year.
The operation, which took place last week, was in the Chahar Dara district of Kunduz Province against Taliban fighters who had been threatening NATO supply lines from Russia.
An estimated 700 Afghan troops and 50 international soldiers, mostly Americans, took part in the operation. A NATO statement said 130 Taliban fighters, including eight commanders, were killed. The statement did not say how NATO arrived at the figure.
“It is the largest operation I’ve ever seen in Kunduz,’’ Mohammad Omar, governor of Kunduz Province, was quoted as saying in the statement. “You’ve got the Taliban running all over the place.’’
After the fighting ended, Afghan and international troops distributed humanitarian supplies in villages affected by the operation. Six trucks delivered clothing and food, including cooking oil, rice, and beans in hopes of winning public support.
Kunduz, a province which borders Tajikistan, is the main area of operation of German forces. But Lieutentant Colonel Joerg Lange, spokesman for the Bundeswehr Operations Command in Potsdam, Germany, said German troops had not been involved in the fighting.
Residents of the northern provinces of Baghlan and Kunduz provinces say security has been steadily deteriorating in the north for the past two years.
But violence increased markedly early this year after NATO opened a new supply route that brings supplies from Europe through Russia and down to the former Soviet republics of central Asia, from where they are trucked to US forces in central and southern Afghanistan.
The United States and Germany stepped up pressure on Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, yesterday to implement major government changes and crack down on corruption.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle of Germany told reporters that additional military and civilian assistance to Afghanistan would depend on Karzai improving the quality of his government.
“Any commitments . . . have to be met by an even greater commitment on the behalf of the government of President Karzai to deliver services for the people of Afghanistan, to begin the effort to root out corruption, to have more accountability and transparency in the way that the government operates,’’ Clinton said. “We are very clear that we will be expecting more from the government of Afghanistan.’’
Speaking for the German government, Westerwelle said “it is necessary to make the Afghan government, to make President Karzai realize that good governance has to become his very own yardstick.’’
In a separate development yesterday, the Ministry of Public Health said 779 cases of swine flu were reported in Afghanistan since early July. Of those, 710 have been among Afghan, US, and Italian troops. Eleven have died from the virus, all of them Afghans, including one soldier.
Public Health Minister Dr. Mohammad Amin Fatemi said the Afghan National Army reported 390 cases of H1N1 and 320 cases were identified among foreign troops. Most are US forces stationed at Bagram Air Base and Italian soldiers at the military base in Herat in western Afghanistan.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
