- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters)
- Taliban guerrillas have killed nine government troops and five policemen
as violence intensifies in Afghanistan's troubled south, Taliban officials
said Tuesday.
-
- The Islamist fighters killed the nine soldiers in an
ambush on a patrol in Kandahar province's remote district of Meya Nishin
late Monday, according to Taliban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi.
-
- Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor confirmed
the ambush, but said he had heard only five soldiers were killed.
-
- Doctors in neighboring Zabul province told Reuters they
had received the bullet ridden bodies of five policemen abducted on Monday
in the Shah Joy district.
-
- "We have killed the five that we kidnapped,"
Taliban commander Mullah Rozi Khan told Reuters.
-
- Four government soldiers were killed Sunday in Zabul
in a mine blast.
-
- Commanders of NATO forces in Kabul fear a spring offensive
by Taliban militia, as the government gears up for landmark parliamentary
and presidential elections in September.
-
- Some 700 people have been killed since last August, mostly
in raids blamed on the Taliban, which has vowed to wage a jihad, or holy
war, against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, aid
workers, foreign troops and international peacekeeping forces.
-
- The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until the U.S.-led invasion
in late 2001.
-
-
- Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
|
