Beowulf
05-04-2004, 08:32 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040504/wl_nm/afghan_taliban_dc_2
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (*******) - Taliban guerrillas have killed nine government troops and five policemen as violence intensifies in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s troubled south, Taliban officials said Tuesday.
The Islamist fighters killed the nine soldiers in an ambush on a patrol in Kandahar province's remote district of Meya Nishin late Monday, according to Taliban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi.
Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor confirmed the ambush, but said he had heard only five soldiers were killed.
Doctors in neighboring Zabul province told ******* they had received the bullet ridden bodies of five policemen abducted on Monday in the Shah Joy district.
"We have killed the five that we kidnapped," Taliban commander Mullah Rozi Khan told *******.
Four government soldiers were killed Sunday in Zabul in a mine blast.
Commanders of NATO (news - web sites) forces in Kabul fear a spring offensive by Taliban militia, as the government gears up for landmark parliamentary and presidential elections in September.
Some 700 people have been killed since last August, mostly in raids blamed on the Taliban, which has vowed to wage a jihad, or holy war, against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, aid workers, foreign troops and international peacekeeping forces.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (*******) - Taliban guerrillas have killed nine government troops and five policemen as violence intensifies in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s troubled south, Taliban officials said Tuesday.
The Islamist fighters killed the nine soldiers in an ambush on a patrol in Kandahar province's remote district of Meya Nishin late Monday, according to Taliban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi.
Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor confirmed the ambush, but said he had heard only five soldiers were killed.
Doctors in neighboring Zabul province told ******* they had received the bullet ridden bodies of five policemen abducted on Monday in the Shah Joy district.
"We have killed the five that we kidnapped," Taliban commander Mullah Rozi Khan told *******.
Four government soldiers were killed Sunday in Zabul in a mine blast.
Commanders of NATO (news - web sites) forces in Kabul fear a spring offensive by Taliban militia, as the government gears up for landmark parliamentary and presidential elections in September.
Some 700 people have been killed since last August, mostly in raids blamed on the Taliban, which has vowed to wage a jihad, or holy war, against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, aid workers, foreign troops and international peacekeeping forces.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.