Nato aircraft struck insurgent strongholds near the Afghan capital which the military said today killed two dozen rebels, including a Taliban commander, as a foreign soldier lost his life in bomb attack in the south. The soldier, whose nationality was not revealed, died in a blast yesterday, Nato's International Security Assistance Force said. The death brings to 437 the number of international troops who have died in the Afghan war so far this year, according to a tally by AFP based on that kept by the independent website icasualties.org.
Many of those deaths have been caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which are the main weapon in the Taliban's arsenal, along with suicide bomb attacks and targeted assassinations. The International Security Assistance Force said two dozen rebels were killed yesterday in air raids on their hideouts in the province of Logar, just south of Kabul, which is marked by Taliban violence. The raids were part of an operation launched in the province to capture a Taliban commander, Qari Muir, the multinational force said.
"During the operation, 12 Taliban insurgents, including Muir, were killed," it said in a statement. Nato said Muir was a former Taliban deputy shadow governor, military commander and intelligence chief for Logar province. Elsewhere in Logar, Nato said nine rebels were killed when another air strike targeted Taliban militants preparing an attack. Three other militants were killed in a separate air strike, the force said.
The death tolls could not be independently verified. Nato said eight of its soldiers were wounded when a military helicopter made a "hard landing" in the southern province of Kandahar. The force quoted initial assessments as saying that enemy fire was not responsible for the emergency landing. A police commander and three of his officers were killed in a Taliban-style bomb explosion in Kandahar yesterday, Afghan authorities and Nato said.
Several other people, including civilians were injured, they said. * AFP
