Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Taleban Disguised as Police

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Taleban Disguised as Police

    Taleban 'in police uniform' ploy

    American special forces and Afghan troops have killed three Taleban insurgents who attacked them disguised as policemen, the US military says.

    They say the incident happened when a joint patrol of US and Afghan forces came under small arms fire in the Shindand district of Herat province.

    They say that the Taleban established a checkpoint there on Wednesday.

    In separate fighting in the south, US and Afghan forces say they killed 24 Taleban militants in Helmand province.

    There has been no independent confirmation of the casualty figures.

    'Terrorise locals'

    US officials say that no Afghan civilians were injured during the fire fight in Shindand, in which they say three other Taleban members were wounded.

    There has been no independent confirmation of the incident.

    Over the past two days US and Afghan forces say that they have confiscated at least 100 fake Afghan National Police (ANP) uniforms, in addition to recovering more than a dozen false personnel identification documents in Herat province.

    They say that over the last fortnight there have been "multiple reports" of Taleban fighters impersonating ANP officers and establishing illegal check points to kidnap and terrorise local Afghan civilians.

    "Taleban fighters are attempting to discredit the Afghan National Police force," said Maj Christopher Belcher of the US army.

    'Ambush positions'

    US special forces and Afghan soldiers say that the fighting in the Sangin district of Helmand lasted seven hours, and involved air strikes.

    They say that two coalition soldiers were wounded during the overnight clash, which took place in an area that coalition forces seized back from insurgent control a fortnight ago.

    Four rebel vehicles were destroyed in the battle, a coalition statement said.

    "After manoeuvring to gain contact with the enemy force, US special forces requested coalition air support to engage the Taleban fighters as they were attempting to establish ambush positions.

    "Approximately 24 Taleban fighters were killed and four vehicles destroyed during the prolonged seven-hour battle."

    In other fighting late on Wednesday, government forces say that they and coalition forces have retaken a strategically important road seized by the Taleban north-east of Kabul.

    BBC NEWS | South Asia | Taleban 'in police uniform' ploy
    Source: BBC NEWS | South Asia | Taleban 'in police uniform' ploy
    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

  • #2
    Last Updated: Sunday, 22 April 2007, 07:34 GMT 08:34 UK

    Double bombings rock Afghan town

    Motorcycles on fire after bombing in Khost

    Khost has been the scene of frequent attacks

    At least six people have been killed and several wounded after two explosions hit the town of Khost in eastern Afghanistan, local police say.

    The first blast, which occurred in a shop in the town's busy market, killed two people, police reported.

    The second explosion, this time the work of a suicide bomber, killed two people and injured two police.

    Khost, which is near the border with Pakistan and an area of Taleban activity, has seen frequent violence.

    Rise in violence

    Khost province borders the Pakistani tribally-administered area of North Waziristan, where a peace deal signed with militants and tribal elders last year saw the Pakistani army pull out.

    map

    US forces say the deal has led to an increase in violence on the Afghan side of the border.

    Bloodshed in Afghanistan last year returned to levels not seen since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, with the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, and Khost and other areas in the east of the country particularly hard-hit.

    Analysts say the bombings are the Taleban's response to being squeezed by the build-up of foreign troops in the south and east and they are very difficult to prevent.

    Some 4,000 people are believed to have died in 2006 in the insurgency - about a quarter of them civilians.

    And experts are now predicting an increase in fighting with the end of winter.


    BBC NEWS | South Asia | Double bombings rock Afghan town

    With the way the violence is being reported, has the AQ spring offensive commenced?

    The snow at the higher altitude would have started melting, but it would be in May June that the snow would have cleared for guerilla action.

    Could these be AQ guerillas who are holed up in Afghanistan itself?


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA

    Comment


    • #3
      Last Updated: Saturday, 21 April 2007, 11:04 GMT 12:04 UK
      E-mail this to a friend Printable version

      Afghanistan's bloody new year

      The Taleban have threatened that hundreds of suicide bombers will attack the Afghan government and foreign military targets this year. Mark Dummett reports from Kabul on the increasing fear of violence in the country.

      It seems as if the Taleban's much-hyped spring offensive may have finally begun, but not in any formal sense, at least not in the contested provinces of southern Afghanistan.

      There the British, American and other Nato forces remain on the front foot.

      But since the country celebrated Nowruz - the Persian New Year - with picnics, dancing and kite flying competitions about a month ago, the insurgents have stepped up their attacks elsewhere.

      In the past week alone, bombers have killed 25 people - most of them policemen and private security guards - in the normally peaceful northern town of Kunduz, in the Taleban's home city of Kandahar in the south and near the eastern border with Pakistan, in Khost.

      Kabul has not escaped the violence. Since Nowruz, there have been three suicide attacks on the capital - 10 people have been killed, none of them the intended victims.

      It still has to be said that the capital is a great place to be at this time of year.

      If you can escape the dust, there is the scent of apple blossom and pine trees in the air. After the long, cold and wet winter, the bazaars are full again and new buildings are going up faster than ever.

      More attacks expected

      But the head of investigations at the Kabul City Police headquarters is not expecting a prosperous and peaceful year. General Ali Shah Paktiawal is certain that more attackers are on their way.

      He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a wad of photographs. Some are passport photos of expressionless men in suits, others are of archetypical mujahideen fighters, posing with their rifles on barren Afghan hillsides.

      "This man," he tells me, pointing at one of them, "entered Kabul last week. We've been trying to track down these other guys, foreigners, for longer."

      For General Paktiawal, a heavy man in a three-piece suit, stopping the bombers is personal.

      Police as targets

      He says the Taleban have tried to kill him more than 20 times. Three weeks ago they tried to assassinate one of his colleagues.

      Map of Afghanistan

      The suicide bomber waited until his target stepped out of his car, then rushed forward.

      But he detonated the explosives too early. Five people walking on the busy pavement were killed in the blast. The detective survived, if more than a little shocked by being hit in the face by the bomber's head.

      General Paktiawal's bodyguards doze on bunks in the room next door.

      There is no natural light in his office. There are a couple of large, dirty sofas and a running machine and a treadmill, that does not look like it has ever been used.

      He tells me I am at risk even talking to him here.

      Last year someone managed to poison his green tea. I do not touch the glass of tea I have been given.

      'Brainwashed'

      He pulls out more photos of the bomb victims and the mangled corpses of the attackers.
      An Afghan policeman stands by a UN vehicle destroyed by a roadside bomb
      Five people were killed in this bomb attack in Kandahar

      "They're mostly young men from Pakistan," he says. They're brainwashed in the madrassas, the religious schools, for two or three months, then sent over here." "I'd be able to stop more of them, if only I had more money."

      He complains that the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force does not help much.

      Their mission is to defend Kabul but their heavily armed, armoured, helmeted, camouflaged squaddies look like they come from another planet, when they walk down streets full of shoppers, schoolgirls and businessmen.

      In fact, the main factor preventing the suicide bombers from causing greater devastation seems to be their own incompetence.

      Young bombers panic

      A study of suicide attacks carried out in the first two months of 2007 by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, showed that most bombers only succeed in blowing themselves up.

      It appears that many of the young men panic before they reach their targets.

      Kabul is by no means a city under siege. There have not been so many attacks that people are scared to leave their homes. But the bombers have created a mood of uncertainty and worry.

      The most recent attack took place near parliament, in a part of town that had been flattened by the civil war of the 1990s.

      I asked Wazali, who lived through those years of mayhem and now sells handbags from a wooden cart not 100 metres from where the suicide bomber struck, to compare then and now.

      "Well, we've got a president now and a government, which is a good thing," he told me.

      "Life is much better.

      "But in those days, at least you knew who your friends and who your enemies were. There was a frontline, now you've no idea who wants to kill you."
      BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Afghanistan's bloody new year
      An indication of how life is in Afghanistan with the violence in the offing in a greater scale.


      "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

      I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

      HAKUNA MATATA

      Comment

      Working...
      X