Taliban getting whipped

75 Taliban killed in Afghan clashes By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jul 24, 6:36 AM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Troops killed at least 75 militants in three separate battles in southern Afghanistan, while the Taliban extended the deadline for the lives of 23 South Korean hostages until Tuesday evening.

South Korea's president appealed for calm as the deadline neared. Afghan elders and clerics were trying to negotiate with militants holding the hostages in central Afghanistan.

In southern Helmand province, Afghan troops ambushed by militants called in airstrikes and fought back with small-arms and mortar fire, the U.S.-led coalition said. The coalition said at least 36 insurgents were killed in the fighting Monday, but no Afghan or coalition troops were hurt.

In Uruzgan province, police clashed for three days with militants blocking the road leading to Kandahar province, leaving 26 militants and two policemen dead, said Wali Jan, the Uruzgan deputy highway police chief. NATO-led and Afghan army troops joined the battle Tuesday, reopening the road for civilians traffic, he said.

Another 13 suspected militants were killed in Kandahar province, the Defense Ministry said.

The battles took place in remote and dangerous parts of Afghanistan, and the death tolls could not be independently confirmed.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the militants had extended the deadline on the fate of the kidnapped South Koreans another day after the Afghan government refused to release any of the 23 Taliban prisoners the insurgents want freed.

The militants have pushed back their ultimatum at least three times.

"If the government won't accept these conditions, then it's difficult for the Taliban to provide security for these hostages, to provide health facilities and food," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone. "The Taliban won't have any option but to kill the hostages."

Though some of Ahmadi's statements turn out to be true, he has also made repeated false claims, calling into question the reliability of his information.

A five-member delegation from Ghazni province traveled to a remote area of Qarabagh district to try to secure the Koreans' freedom, said Khwaja Mohammad Sidiqi, the local police chief.

"Our negotiations are continuing," said Khial Mohammad Husseini, a lawmaker for Ghazni. "I hope that today we will get a good result."

The deputy interior minister, Abdul Khaliq said Afghanistan was not prepared to make a deal "against our national interest and our constitution," though he did not explicitly rule out freeing any prisoners.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun appealed for calm, saying at a Cabinet meeting "it's not a time to be hastily optimistic nor to be prematurely pessimistic about the outcome."

"It's important to resolve this in a calm and cool-headed attitude," he said. "The most important goal at this time is to get them back safely."

The South Korean Defense Ministry said it asked the Afghan military to refrain from conducting operations around the area where the hostages were believed held to avoid provoking the kidnappers.

The South Korean hostages, including 18 women, were kidnapped on Thursday while riding on a bus through Ghazni on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Afghanistan's main thoroughfare.

More than 100 villagers in Ghazni demonstrated for their release Tuesday.

Violence has spiked sharply in Afghanistan the last two months. More than 3,500 people, mostly militants, have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of casualty figures provided by Western and Afghan officials.

In other violence, a roadside blast killed four U.S. soldiers in eastern Paktika province on Monday, said Gov. Mohammad Ekram Akhpelwak.

Norway said one if its soldiers was killed in Logar province, and NATO said a sixth soldier was killed in the south, though the soldier's nationality was not released.

The deaths bring to 114 the number of Western soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, including 54 Americans, according to the AP count.

Also Tuesday, Afghanistan's last king was to be buried in a hilltop shrine in Kabul next to his late wife and other members of the royal family in a ceremony attended by foreign and Afghan dignitaries.

Mohammad Zahir Shah, who oversaw four decades of relative peace before a 1973 palace coup ousted him and war shattered his country, died Monday at 92.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070724/...as/afghanistan

even their leaders are killing themselves in fear

Pakistan militant leader kills himself By ABDUL SATTAR, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 35 minutes ago



QUETTA, Pakistan - A former Guantanamo Bay inmate who led pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan after his release died Tuesday when he blew himself up with a grenade to avoid arrest, police said.

The death of Abdullah Mehsud is a boost for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who faces growing U.S. pressure to crack down on Islamic militants battling security forces on both sides of the Afghan border.

Intelligence agents cornered Mehsud overnight at the home of an Islamist politician in Zhob, police said. The town is 160 miles from the southwestern city of Quetta.

"My information is that Abdullah Mehsud killed himself," Zhob Police Chief Atta Mohammed told The Associated Press. "Thanks be to God that only he was blown up and our men were safe."

Federal Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema confirmed Mehsud's death, but provided no details.

U.S.-allied Afghan forces captured Mehsud, who earlier lost a leg fighting for the Taliban, in northern Afghanistan in December 2001. He was held at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and it remains unclear why he was released in March 2004.

He quickly took up arms again, leading militants in South Waziristan, a mountainous stronghold for both the Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt. Mehsud was also wanted in the 2004 kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, one of whom died in a rescue raid by Pakistani commandos, and escaped a manhunt by the Pakistan army.

Zahid Hussain, an author and expert on Pakistan's militant groups, said the defiance of Mehsud, a rotund man in his early 30s, made him a hero among his fellow militants.

"Even if he wasn't seen, he was an inspiration," Hussain said. "In that way, (his death is) a big gain for the Pakistani forces."

There were new militant attacks Tuesday on Pakistani army posts in North Waziristan. Troops returned fire, an intelligence official said, but no casualties were reported. On Monday, at least 20 militants and two soldiers were killed in fighting.

Militants also detonated dynamite at a municipal office late Monday in Miran Shah, the regional capital, causing damage but no injuries, said the official, who is not allowed to speak on the record to reporters.

Farther north, the beheaded bodies of two soldiers abducted Monday night were found in the Bajur tribal area, said Sardar Yousaf, a local government official.

Violence has flared across Pakistan since a deadly military raid on a radical mosque in the capital of Islamabad earlier this month. More than 300 people have died, most of them security forces.

Much of the trouble has been in North Waziristan, a tribal region where a 10-month-old peace deal with between the government and militants has broken down and the army has redeployed troops backed by helicopters and artillery.

The government still hopes to resurrect the deal, although Washington has described it as a failure that gave breathing to al-Qaida to regroup — and perhaps plot another big attack on the United States.

Arab, Afghan and Central Asian militants suspected of links with al-Qaida as well as Taliban and local militants operate in North and South Waziristan.

A Pakistani intelligence official said Mehsud was intercepted on his way back from Afghanistan's Helmand province, where the official said he led supporters fighting alongside the Taliban against Afghan and U.S. forces.

The intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters, said Mehsud had been in Afghanistan for more than a year and there was no evidence that he organized the recent violence in Pakistan.

___

Associated Press writers Bashirullah Khan in Miran Shah, Habibullah Khan in Khar and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070724/...ilitant_leader


Who says we are losing this war in Afghanistan, everyday the Talibans number decreases and the people living there are safer. :thankyou: