Saturday, June 07, 2008

Suspects Killed, Several Detained in Afghanistan

American Forces Press Service

June 6, 2008 - Several suspects were killed and five were detained during June 3 operations in Afghanistan,
military officials reported today. More than a dozen militants were killed when they unsuccessfully attacked a coalition base in Uruzgan province.

Militants used mortars and small-arms fire to attack Afghan national
security forces at the base until additional Afghan and coalition forces arrived, officials said. The militants then fled to nearby villages, where the combined forces saw them attempting to use villagers as shields against attacks.

The combined forces killed several militants in Caharsyab and Nowrak villages, and no villagers were harmed, officials said.

Several hours later, the combined forces came under rocket-propelled-grenade, mortar and small-arms fire near the base. The combined forces responded with small-arms fire and precision air strikes, killing more than a dozen insurgents.

No civilian casualties were reported, and no Afghan or coalition forces were injured or killed.

In other operations, several militants were killed and five were detained during an Afghan and coalition operation to disrupt anti-government operations in Helmand province.

The combined forces searched compounds in the province's Kajaki district, targeting a Taliban
leader associated with the murder of Afghan government officials.

The combined forces identified a militant waiting in an ambush position with a rocket-propelled grenade and several other militants consolidating for an attack. Coalition forces responded with air strikes, killing the militants.

The combined forces discovered multiple AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition vests, ammunition, grenades and a large cache of
narcotics, all of which were destroyed.

(Compiled from Combined Joint Task Force 101 news releases.)

1 comment:

Dr. John Maszka said...

First, let me–anybody who harbors terrorists needs to fear the United States...I would strongly urge the Taliban to turn over the al-Qaeda organizers who hide in their country. We’re–we’re on the case...Clearly, one of our focuses is to get people out of their caves, smoke them out, get them moving and get them.
-President George W. Bush, September 19, 2001.

Though many argued that military action was not, by any means, the better way to approach the situation, air strikes were ordered on innocent civilians with a chilling and cruel indifference:
Despite warnings from many food aid organizations that the U.S. bombing put hundreds of thousands or millions of Afghan civilians at increased risk of starvation, the United States continued with the bombing...Admittedly the U.S. military could have killed more Afghan civilians if it wanted to. But that doesn’t refute the claim that Washington showed a morally unacceptable disregard for the lives of Afghans. So far the ‘war on terrorism’ has been a massacre.

The Bush administration initially tried to tell us there were no civilian casualties then as well.