German patrol attacked by Taliban in Afghanistan

Posted : Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:04:28 GMT By : dpa

Earth Times, Kunduz, Afghanistan -

Taliban fighters attacked a German military patrol in the Chardarah district of northern Afghanistan on Friday, a local official said.

Abdul Wahid Omarkhel, the district chief, said "heavy fighting" was going on between Taliban and German forces around the village of Eisakhel, but was unable to say if there were German casualties.

Intelligence information from the area said a Taliban commander was injured in the battle and several houses were damaged, the official said. NATO helicopters were hovering nearby.

A Taliban spokesman in Chardarah, who did not want to be named, confirmed the attack. He said two tanks were destroyed and several soldiers killed. Taliban claims are often inflated.

"The fighting is still ongoing and the bodies of some of the soldiers are still in the area," the commander told the German Press Agency dpa.

Chardarah is the most dangerous of the six districts that make up the northern province of Kunduz.

Germany has around 4,300 soldiers based in northern Afghanistan, serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Three German soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Fri Apr 2, 2010, 11:17 am ET

BERLIN (AFP) –

Three German soldiers were killed in fighting with Taliban insurgents Friday in northern Afghanistan, the German military said.

Several others were reported wounded in the clash near Chahar Dara, southwest of Kunduz, a military spokesman said, adding that fighting was continuing.

The deaths brought to 39 the German death toll in Afghanistan since Berlin sent troops to the country in 2002 in a move that remains unpopular with the public.

Mohammad Omar, the provincial governor of Kunduz told AFP that German troops were on their way to Chahar Dara to supply their posts there.

"Along the road they found some roadside bombs planted by the Taliban. They were removing the bombs from the road when the Taliban attacked them. A fight erupted during which a Taliban commander called Mullah Habib was killed," he added.

A correspondent with the German weekly Der Spiegel said some 200 Taliban were waiting in ambush and attacked the German troops. A German armoured vehicle was blown up on a mine, he added.

NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan

Sat Apr 3, 2010, 2:31 am ET

KABUL (AFP) –

A soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been killed in an explosion in volatile southern Afghanistan, the alliance said Saturday.

The trooper was killed by a home-made bomb on Friday, a NATO statement said without giving details of the nationality of the victim (But the published photo with this news story was about US marines, indicating that the soldier might have been an American).

"An ISAF service member died yesterday as a result of an IED (improvised explosive device) strike in southern Afghanistan," it said.

The latest casualty brings the number of foreign soldiers killed to 144 so far this year, according to an AFP tally.

Also on Friday three German soldiers were killed and eight wounded in a Taliban ambush as they were clearing bombs in northern Kunduz province.

6 troops, 30 Taliban die in NW Pakistan clashes

By Hussain Afzal, Associated Press Writer

April 3, 2010

PARACHINAR, Pakistan –

Pakistani troops fought gunbattles and bombed militant hide-outs in a Taliban stronghold near the Afghan border Saturday, leaving six soldiers and 30 militants dead, officials said.

It was part of a recently launched operation in Orakzai tribal region aimed at flushing out foreign and Pakistani militants who last year fled an army onslaught further south.

Government official Sami Ullah said both ground forces and army helicopters took part in Saturday's fighting that killed 30 insurgents. The troops captured six militants after the fighting, he added.

Two military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information to media, said six soldiers also died, and another 10 were wounded.

It was not immediately possible to get independent confirmation of the casualties and the identities of those killed in the remote and volatile region.

Ullah said Pakistani forces have killed about 250 militants in the region in the past three weeks and have cleared several militant strongholds.

Orakzai usually has a population of 450,000 and borders the tribal regions of Khyber and Kurram. But the violence there has forced tens of thousands of civilians to move to safer places in recent months.

At least 10,000 people left Orakzai and moved to a camp in the nearby Kohat region since the latest offensive began there in the second week of March.

Washington has praised Islamabad for targeting militant strongholds in various tribal regions.

The CIA has also launched scores of missile attacks near the Afghan border, killing Taliban, al-Qaida men and local insurgents.

Pakistani Taliban have responded with suicide and bomb attacks on police and civilians in major cities.

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Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.