31 including children, security personnel killed

KABUL): Two children and nineteen rebels were among 31 people killed in a series of operations, blasts and clashes in different parts of the country, officials said on Monday.

Eighteen insurgents and three Afghan National Army (ANA) officers were killed in separate security incidents and raids in the Kabul, Ghazni, Paktia and Helmand provinces.

Two fighters were injured and 14 others detained during the operations, a statement from the interior ministry said, adding 65 kilograms of drugs, weapons and two motorcycles were seized.

The tree ANA soldiers were killed and five others wounded as a result of roadside bombings and militant attacks in Paktia, Maidan Wardak, Logar and Helmand provinces, the Ministry of Defence said.

Separately, two children were killed and as many wounded when a warhead exploded in the Char Qala-i-Wazirabad area in the 10th police district of Kabul. In Paghman, a man was detained with three kilograms of explosives.

Meanwhile, a bomb-making expert was killed and two of his associates were wounded during a clash with security personnel in the Qaisar district of northern Faryab province.

The town’s administrative chief, Mohammad Siddique Hamidyar, said the expert could place a bomb even inside a snuff cane.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the fighters killed a police commander and injured his two guards in the same district.

In eastern Nangarhar province, four people were injured when an explosives-rigged rickshaw went off near the Eidgah Mosque in Jalalabad, police spokesman Col. Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal said.

Three policemen were killed in insurgent attack on Sunday evening in the Dago area of Chaparhar district, Mashriqiwal added. The rickshaw driver, who was carrying dinner to a police checkpoint, was also killed.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying tree policemen were killed and their weapons snatched by rebels.

In southern Ghazni province, three civilians were killed and two others wounded when Taliban-fired missiles landed in residential areas in Andar and Deh Yak districts, the National Directorate of Security said.

Separately, an Afghan and coalition security force arrested a senior Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) leader in the Chahar Dara district of Kunduz province, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

It accused the IMU leader of directing improvised explosives device attacks in the province and said the security force also detained two additional suspected insurgents and seized improvised explosive device components.

In the Chamtal district of northern Balkh province, the joint forces detained several more suspected insurgents during an operation to arrest a Taliban weapons supplier, the NATO-led force added.

myn/mud

Visits: 4