Amid continuing violence, US soldier dies in Afghanistan clash

By Matthew Pennington, Associated Press, 8/23/2003

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A US special operations soldier was killed in action in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said yesterday.

In a neighboring province, meanwhile, coalition troops arrested four people and seized weapons stored in caves by insurgents.

Petty Officer First Class David M. Tapper, 32, of Camden County, N.J., died from injuries suffered on Wednesday, the Defense Department said in Washington. The US military's Central Command said his injuries were sustained in a "hostile fire incident" around Orgun in Paktika Province.

On Thursday, the military said a coalition soldier had been slightly wounded by a bomb while on patrol in the same region. It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were linked.

On Wednesday night, Islamic extremists burned down a school for girls south of the capital and distributed letters threatening to kill anyone working for the US-backed Afghan government, a senior Afghan military official said.

The Abu Sofian school was housed in a tent in Logar Province, 30 miles south of Kabul. The school was closed for a monthlong holiday and nobody was hurt in the fire.

General Hatiqulluj Luddin, a regional military commander, said authorities suspected unnamed extremists from nearby villages.

Colonel Rodney Davis, spokesman at Bagram air base, said yesterday that special operations soldiers raided weapons caches used by insurgents in eastern Khost Province and arrested four people.

In central Uruzgan Province, two Afghan soldiers and four Taliban guerrillas were killed in the latest incursion blamed on the ousted regime, Reuters reported. Attacks by alleged Taliban have increased, with a string of incursions in the country's south and east, including two deadly raids targeting Afghan police in Paktika last weekend -- reportedly launched by hundreds of guerrillas traveling in trucks from the direction of neighboring Pakistan. Senator John McCain, visiting Afghanistan with a congressional delegation yesterday, said Pakistan was "not doing as much as it can" to stop the insurgents. He said the delegation would raise the issue when it meets Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf today.