Foreign forces kill 3 civilians in Afghanistan: govt

April 30, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) –

Foreign troops (NATO occupation forces) killed two women and a girl as they travelled by car in southern Afghanistan on Friday, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry told AFP.

"A foreign forces convoy opened fire on a vehicle coming the other way, thinking they were Taliban," said Zemarai Bashary. "Two women and one girl were killed and one other woman was wounded," he said.

Afghan governor: Taliban commander, bodyguard killed in Kunduz

DPA, Thursday, 29 Apr 2010 08:41:29 GMT

Kunduz, Afghanistan -

Afghan troops and US special forces killed a Taliban commander and his bodyguard Thursday in northern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said.

Mullah Daoud and one of his men were killed in a pre-dawn operation in Ghor Tapa, an area in Kunduz city, the capital of the province of the same name, Governor Mohammad Omar said.

"He was the main Taliban commander in the area," Omar said, adding that four other suspected militants were detained by the soldiers.

Daoud was appointed Taliban commander for Kunduz city and the province's Chardarah district after his predecessor Mullah Selaab was killed in a similar operation on the weekend.

Afghan troops and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have recently stepped up their operations against militants in Kunduz and neighbouring Baghlan, the most turbulent provinces in the region.

Afghan and ISAF forces killed Mullah Noor Mohammad, the Taliban's shadow governor for Kunduz province, Monday.

NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan: ISAF

Fri Apr 30, 2010, 1:40 am ET

KABUL (AFP) –

An improvised explosive device killed a soldier serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the military announced Friday.

The death occurred in southern Afghanistan, but NATO did not specify the soldier's nationality, in line with policy.

A total of 172 foreign soldiers have died in the country this year.

In 2009, according to an AFP tally using data from icasualties.org, 520 foreign soldiers died fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest year for them since the war began in 2001.

NATO and the United States are throwing thousands of extra troops into Afghanistan, where their military deployment is set to peak at 150,000 in August under a strategy designed to bring a swift end to the conflict.

Most of the extra troops are deploying in the south, the heartland of the Taliban-led insurgency and the focus of the US-led fight to flush the militants from Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

More than two thirds of the international force in Afghanistan are from the United States.