Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
February 11, 2007
Pg. 16
By Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 10 — Taliban insurgents have stepped up attacks in southern Afghanistan in recent days, killing four Afghan policemen in an ambush on Friday night and aiming at NATO troops with the second suicide bombing in a week in what seems to be the opening of the fighting season, officials said Saturday.
The suicide bomber smashed his car into a NATO military convoy north of Kandahar on Saturday morning, killing himself but not hurting anyone else, said the province police chief, Asmatullah Alizay. Another bomber attacked a military convoy in the same place on Feb. 4.
Taliban insurgents have also appeared again in the troubled southern district of Panjwai, ambushing a police patrol on Friday night and killing four policemen and wounding two more. NATO troops mounted two heavy combat operations last year to clear insurgents from the area and have tried to establish security by boosting the local police forces.
NATO forces also fought Taliban forces for several hours in the next-door province of Helmand, where they have been trying to clear the area around the Kajaki dam to allow engineers in for a renovation project, one of the United States government’s largest development efforts in the country.
Taliban forces who overran the town of Musa Qala last week were also preparing for a fight if government or NATO troops moved against them, a resident from the town said in a telephone interview. The resident, Amir Jan, 32, who has a clothes shop in the town but has fled along with other townspeople who feared renewed fighting, said that the Taliban were promising more heavy fighting this year against foreign forces in Afghanistan and were vowing to seize control of more towns.
The fighters said they were loyal to the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and were under his orders to fight, Mr. Jan said. Although their local leader, Mullah Abdul Ghafoor, was killed in a NATO airstrike on Feb. 4, his deputy, whom Mr. Jan did not name, was in charge and vowing to take revenge for Mullah Ghafoor’s death.
February 11, 2007
Pg. 16
By Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 10 — Taliban insurgents have stepped up attacks in southern Afghanistan in recent days, killing four Afghan policemen in an ambush on Friday night and aiming at NATO troops with the second suicide bombing in a week in what seems to be the opening of the fighting season, officials said Saturday.
The suicide bomber smashed his car into a NATO military convoy north of Kandahar on Saturday morning, killing himself but not hurting anyone else, said the province police chief, Asmatullah Alizay. Another bomber attacked a military convoy in the same place on Feb. 4.
Taliban insurgents have also appeared again in the troubled southern district of Panjwai, ambushing a police patrol on Friday night and killing four policemen and wounding two more. NATO troops mounted two heavy combat operations last year to clear insurgents from the area and have tried to establish security by boosting the local police forces.
NATO forces also fought Taliban forces for several hours in the next-door province of Helmand, where they have been trying to clear the area around the Kajaki dam to allow engineers in for a renovation project, one of the United States government’s largest development efforts in the country.
Taliban forces who overran the town of Musa Qala last week were also preparing for a fight if government or NATO troops moved against them, a resident from the town said in a telephone interview. The resident, Amir Jan, 32, who has a clothes shop in the town but has fled along with other townspeople who feared renewed fighting, said that the Taliban were promising more heavy fighting this year against foreign forces in Afghanistan and were vowing to seize control of more towns.
The fighters said they were loyal to the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and were under his orders to fight, Mr. Jan said. Although their local leader, Mullah Abdul Ghafoor, was killed in a NATO airstrike on Feb. 4, his deputy, whom Mr. Jan did not name, was in charge and vowing to take revenge for Mullah Ghafoor’s death.