KABUL, Afghanistan, July 17, (Agencies): Afghan and NATO troops on Sunday killed at least 13 Taleban fighters in eastern Afghanistan after an overnight gunbattle ended with an airstrike on the building where the insurgents were holed up, Afghan and coalition officials said.
Capt Justin Brockhoff, a spokesman for the coalition, said the fighting started during an overnight operation targeting a Taleban leader in the Kuz Kunar district of Nangarhar province. The joint force made up of Afghan and coalition troops came under fire and insurgents refused requests to come out of the building, he said.
The fighting ended Sunday with a NATO airstrike, he said, adding that there were no casualties among civilians or security forces. The insurgents were armed with machine guns, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
“As Afghan members of the security force attempted to clear the building, they were met with continuing insurgent fire,” Brockhoff said. The coalition and Afghan forces eventually called in an airstrike, which “killed several more insurgents and destroyed the building,” he said.
Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the Nangarhar provincial governor, said the bodies of 13 insurgents have been found so far. He said the building occupied by the Taleban was school which was empty because the students are on summer break.
The fighting came as NATO handed over control for security in central Bamiyan province to Afghan security forces — the first of seven areas to be transferred to Afghan control. The province, along with Panjshir in the east, has seen little to no fighting since the overthrow of the Taleban nearly 10 years ago. Bamiyan and Panjshir are the only two provinces that will transition in their entirety and barely had any coalition troops present there.
Also Sunday, NATO said one of its service members was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan. It did not release a nationality or any further details.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense also confirmed that a British soldier had been shot dead in what Afghan officials said was an attack by a gunman in Afghan army uniform on Saturday. The ministry said the soldier from the 9th/12th Royal Lancers was on a joint NATO-Afghan army patrol in Helmand province on when he came under small-arms fire.
Unknown gunmen opened fire at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan overnight, killing at least two guests and wounding seven others, an official said Sunday.
Police have launched an investigation to find out who attacked the ceremony in Baghlani Jadid district in the northern province of Baghlan, an area where the Taleban and other insurgents are known to be active, the official said.
“There was a wedding party last night in Baghlani Jadid district. Some unknown people entered and opened fire on people,” Mohmood Haqmal, a spokesman for the provincial administration, told AFP.
“Two people have died and seven others are injured,” he added.
It was not known who was behind the shooting but similar attacks have in the past been blamed on Taleban and other Islamist militants who oppose music at weddings.
The Taleban, who were in power between 1994 and 2001, banned music and all sorts of entertainment as un-Islamic.
The Taleban were ousted from the power in late 2001 in a US-led invasion that followed the al-Qaeda attacks on US cities on Sept 11 that year.