Daily Security Brief: June 30, 2011

GHAZNI: Four security guards were killed when a group of militants attacked a convoy of trucks carrying supplies for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in southern Ghazni province, provicial police chief Col. Mohammad Jan Hussain said Thursday.

The attack happened in Nani area on the Kabul-Kandahar Highway. Eyewitnesses said the Kabul-Kandahar Highway was closed to traffic after the attack.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, also said four security guards had been killed and as many others injured in the assault. Four trucks carrying logistics supplies were torched, he said.

— Mirwais Himmat

HELMAND: Six people, five of them from the same family, were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Marja district of southern Helmand province on Thursday, said district chief Abudl Mutallib. Elsewhere in Helmand, a Taliban commander was detained along with four of his fighters, according to a statement issued by the governor’s office Thursday.

The six civilians were driving to an engagement party in the afternoon when their vehicle struck the bomb in the Shin Ghazak area. The dead included a woman and four children, whom resident Juma Gul said were a mother and her children. Two men were also killed, including the driver. The district chief blamed insurgents for the incident. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

Commander Haji MaMa, also known as Mutmain, was arrested in a combined operation of Afghan and coalition forces late on Wednesday in Nahr-i-Saraj area of the Grishk district, according to the statement from the governor’s office. The statement said there were no casualties in the operation.

— Zainullah Stanikzai

KAPISA: A woman and two girls were injured in an ISAF airstrike in central Kapisa province, district chief Padsah Gul Bakhtyar said Thursday.

The air raid was carried out raid in a mountainous area in the Merakhel district.

Amrullah, a tribal elder and eyewitness, said the injured included a 35-year-old woman and her two daughters, aged between 11 and 13 years old. ISAF’s media office in Kabul said no operation had been carried out in the area.

— Bakhtar Safi

KHOST: An off-duty border policeman was killed in his home along with his father when unidentified gunmen opened fire on them in southeastern Khost province, according to Wali Shah Himmat, the Garbuz district chief. The policeman’s wife and brother were also injured in the attack. Elsewhere in Khost, four border policemen were injured when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle. They were on their way to a fellow police officer’s funeral at the time, Himmat said.

No one has claimed responsibility for either attack.

— Mali Khan Yaqubi

KUNDUZ: A blast from a motorcycle-mounted bomb injured five people but spared its target, the Kunduz provincial head of police recruitment, according to Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, the provincial police spokesman.

The bomb exploded around 7:30 am Wednesday in the Sayed Abad area of the province. The target of the attack, Lt. Col. Ibrahim, survived the blast, but two policemen and three civilians were injured, Hussaini said.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack. Contradicting official accounts, he claimed the provincial head of police recruitment had been killed in the attack along with four others.

— Waheedullah

LOGAR: Six Taliban militants were killed and three others injured during an engagement with Afghan and international security forces in the Baraki Barak district of central Logar province, District Chief Mohammad Rahim Amin told Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday.

The clash broke out after a group of insurgents attacked the joint force during a patrol in the Yousuf village on Wednesday night, Amin said.

The firefight lasted an hour, he said, adding that the combined force suffered no casualties.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the attack was part of their spring offensive and contradicted the official account, claiming that five foreign soldiers were killed in the ambush. He confirmed the death of four Taliban fighters.

Mujahid further said the fighters attacked a convoy of trucks carrying supplies for NATO forces on the Kabul-Gardez Highway, destroying one truck and two oil tankers. He claimed that two security guards escorting the convoy were killed.

But the governor’s spokesman, Din Mohammd Darwesh, rejected Mujahid’s claim that two guards had been killed and some vehicles destroyed.

— Maqsud Aziz

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