One hopes that the child and mother will not get a bomb dropped on them, huh?
And I thought we were winning?
"Troops have Taliban in sights; As villagers flee, militants are said to be surrounded" by Noor Khan/Associated Press November 1, 2007
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan - Afghan civilians piled belongings onto trucks yesterday and fled two villages infiltrated by hundreds of Taliban militants. US, Canadian, and Afghan troops had about 250 of the insurgents surrounded.
The provincial police chief said the troops killed 50 militants in three days of fighting near the villages 15 miles north of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city. Three policemen and one Afghan soldier also died.
"The people are fleeing because the Taliban are taking over civilian homes," said the chief, Sayed Agha Saqib. "There have been no airstrikes. We are trying our best to attack those areas where there are no civilians, only Taliban."
Saqib said 250 militants were surrounded, and 16 suspected Taliban have been arrested.
The fighters moved into the Arghandab district of Kandahar province this week, about two weeks after the death of a tribal leader, Mullah Naqib, who had kept Taliban fighters out of his region. President Hamid Karzai traveled to Kandahar for Naqib's funeral.
"He was a good influence for his tribe. He was supporting the government," Saqib said of Naqib. "After he died the Taliban were thinking they would go to Arghandab and cause trouble for Kandahar city. But now they're surrounded and they're in big trouble."
The gathering of fighters on the doorstep of Kandahar - the Taliban's former power base - is reminiscent of last year's battle in neighboring Panjwayi district.
NATO officials have said hundreds of Taliban tried to overrun Kandahar last year. But Saqib said he did not believe the militants occupying the villages of Chaharqulba and Sayedan would attempt a run on Afghanistan's main southern city.
"We are capturing and killing them and I don't think it will cause any problem for Kandahar," he said.
US Humvees and Canadian jeeps crossed Arghandab's countryside on patrols yesterday alongside hundreds of Afghans fleeing the area in the middle of harvest season, leaving their pomegranate crop at prime picking time.
Great, so the Afghanis will be even further impoverished -- as well as being dislocated!
I'm sick of these failing miserable wars based on lies!
Karimullah Khan piled his three children into the front seat of a pickup truck and put three female relatives in the back beside household goods and clothes. He was driving to Kandahar city to stay with relatives, he said.
"The Taliban came into our village and they told us to leave," Khan said. "We just packed up our necessities and left. Our pomegranate orchard and home we left behind."
More than 5,600 people have died this year in insurgency-related violence."
Woah! That's about a 300 person rise in about two weeks!!!!!!
Oh, the slaughter!!!!
"Afghan Force and NATO Battle Taliban in South" by TAIMOOR SHAH
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan, Oct. 31 — Afghan and NATO forces fought hundreds of Taliban fighters 15 miles outside Kandahar in southern Afghanistan for a second day on Wednesday, according to Afghan and Western officials. A local police commander said 250 Taliban fighters had been surrounded and 50 of them killed just north of the city, but Western military officials said they could not confirm the claims.
Canadian military officials said that Afghan and NATO troops gained some ground on Wednesday and that the Taliban force appeared far smaller than the one that massed west of the city roughly a year ago.
Last September, an estimated 500 Taliban fighters were killed and 136 captured in the Panjwai and Zhare districts in the largest single battle in Afghanistan since 2002.
“They’re smaller engagements spread over the area,” said Lt. Cmdr. Pierre Babinsky, a Canadian military spokesman. “Smaller engagements against fairly small numbers of insurgents.”
But the current front line, along the banks of the Arghandab River, is roughly five miles closer to the city than last year’s. Fleeing villagers have expressed anger at Taliban and NATO forces, saying firing by both groups endangered Afghan civilians.
“We can’t trust either side,” said Ismatullah, a 40-year-old farmer who uses only one name. “That is why we are fleeing.”
According to Afghan officials, no civilian deaths were reported in two days of fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces, made up of Canadian and American troops.
Why did the Times cut the rest from the web site!
Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a telephone interview that fighters from the hard-line Islamic group had lost no ground and were not surrounded. He said the Taliban destroyed a NATO tank and an Afghan Army vehicle. Afghan officials said three Afghan police officers and a soldier had died so far in the fighting.
Oh, that's why!
Then they kept this paragraph!
A Western military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that NATO and Afghan forces were planning to carry out a slow and methodical sweep of the area.
Back to the cut:
"Villagers said protracted fighting would be a "disaster" in Arghandab, a fertile area famous for its pomegranates, where harvest season is under way.
Haji Akhtar Muhammad, a farmer who fled Wednesday with his family and household goods piled on a tractor, said Taliban fighters who had seized control of the village gave him a choice.
"The Taliban said "If you would like to stay, you can stay,'" he said. "The Taliban said, 'We are going to fight against the infidels and their allies."
I am sick of Zionist-controlled shit-spew, readers!!!
Doesn't want us to know what Afghanis said, and then they misquote 'em!!!!
So the USA and NATO are going to ruin the pomegranate crop, huh?
Like the Israelis destroy Palestinian olive groves, huh?
