Fighting escalates against foreign troops in Afghanistan
KABUL: Resurgent fighters in Afghanistan have stepped up their campaign against foreign troops in this war-shattered country, hitting US bases across the east with a barrage of mortar and rocket fire, officials said on Monday.
US forces fought back, calling in air support that smashed a cluster of several suspected militant vehicles and killed at least two attackers on Sunday in the eastern border town of Shkin, US Army spokesman Col Roger King told reporters at Bagram Air Base.
In Kabul, Afghan security forces were searching houses and combing hills to the east of the city in a bid to capture militants who fired a 122 mm rocket on Sunday night into the headquarters of the 22-nation multinational force protecting the capital.
The rocket attack -- launched either from the back of a truck or from a shoulder-fired weapon -- was the most sophisticated strike yet on the 5,000-man International Security Assistance Force, said peacekeeping spokesman Lt-Col Thomas Lobbering of Germany.
Sunday's was the first rocket attack to hit any ISAF facility, after a year. In Shkin, assailants fired about a dozen 82 mm mortar rounds toward a US base, triggering an attack by a US Marine AV-8 Harrier jet that dropped a 454-kilo, laser-guided bomb on three vehicles spotted trying to leave the area. Two Apache helicopter gunships were also called in, but they did not fire.
In a separate incident, attackers fired two rockets at another US base in the eastern town of Gardez, but caused no casualties. A rocket was also fired at the Kabul Military Training Centre, just east of the capital, late Sunday. Afghan authorities say Taliban, their al-Qaeda allies and forces loyal to a renegade commander are behind the recent wave of attacks.
King said the recent violence and attacks were part of a surge in militant activity after the United States and Britain invaded Iraq earlier this month. Despite Sunday's rocket attack on ISAF's headquarters, Lobbering said he did not expect security to deteriorate in the capital because of the war in Iraq. "However, we are aware that there is a constant threat of attacks like the one that happened last night," he said. -Agencies
In Kandahar, police said a former Taliban trade minister Mullah Abdul Razzaq, was among some 40 suspects arrested in joint government-US military operations over the past three days.
The former minister was among dozens of people captured near the border with the central province of Oruzgan since Saturday in fighting between 1,200 pro-government Afghan fighters, backed by US forces, and a group of 50-100 suspected Taliban.
Thirteen Taliban were killed during the operation launched by the Kandahar authorities two days after the execution-style murder of a foreign Red Cross worker by unidentified gunmen and the destruction of several government vehicles in the same area. Source: http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2003-daily/01-04-2003/main/main13.htm --- Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za]