30 militants killed in Nato strafe

At least 30 militants were killed as two NATO helicopters struck Pakistan’s northwest tribal area bordering Afghanistan in the wee hours of Monday.
According to ISAF, two Apache helicopters conducted attacks inside Pakistan in which 30 militants got killed. They entered Pakistan in pursuit of extremist, he added. The alleged militants had attacked an outlying military post Friday in Afghanistan’s Khost province. The insurgents were then pursued across the Pakistani border by two of NATO’s Apache helicopters. According to initial reports, no civilians were harmed in the ISAF airstrike. ISAF said that its forces followed existing rules of engagement.

Taliban seize key district in Afghan east

KABUL: Taliban guerrillas have captured a strategic district from the Afghan government after days of clashes in eastern Nuristan province, officials said on Sunday.

Separately, the Afghan government said it was checking reports by locals saying some 40 Afghan civilians were killed in a raid by foreign forces in Sangin district of southern Helmand province on Friday.

In Nuristan”s Barg-e Matal, dozens of Taliban fighters and up to six Afghan police were killed during days of clashes before the district fell to the Taliban overnight.

Barg-e-Matal is important for the government and militants because of its location and has regularly changed hands.

Lying near the border with Pakistan, the rugged district has been used as a supply route for arms and fighters for the Taliban in three provinces, most importantly for Badakhshan where the Taliban have mounted a series of deadly attacks recently.

Afghan police forces withdrew from Barg-e-Matal to avoid high casualties and in the face of sustained Taliban pressure after days of skirmishes, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters.

“Right now the police forces in Nuristan are working to recapture it,” he said.

The Taliban have yet to comment about the fall of the district and the reported losses in their ranks.

In Helmand province, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, Bashary said provincial authorities were checking reports by residents that dozens of civilians were killed in a raid by foreign forces on Friday.

Further details were not immediately available.

Three NATO soldiers among nine killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: Three foreign soldiers and five Afghan civilians were killed in a brazen Taliban attack on a police base in the southern province of Kandahar, NATO and Afghan authorities said Wednesday.

The rebels set off an explosives-laden car before firing rockets and small arms on Tuesday evening, they said.

Afghan police backed by international forces fought back “and prevented insurgents from penetrating the compound perimeter,” NATO”s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. ISAF did not reveal the nationalities of the troops.

Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the Kandahar government, told foreign news agency the car bomb was set off by a suicide bomber. Several other insurgents attacked the base with rockets and machine-gun fire for more than 20 minutes, he said. The attackers fled the area after reinforcements arrived, Ayoubi said.

Six U.S. soldiers, 12 civilians killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: Six U.S. soldiers and 12 civilians were killed Saturday in various attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan, said NATO and local authorities.

According to the Atlantic Alliance, four U.S. soldiers were killed in eastern Afghanistan: one was killed by small arms fire, another died when a bomb detonated near his vehicle, and another was killed in an attack by the insurgency and a fourth died in an explosion.

Two other U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in southern Afghanistan. Every time a bomb has blown in their vehicle. In addition, 11 civilians were killed by unidentified gunmen in an ambush against their minibus in the area of Chamkani (east), according to local authorities, while the explosion of a motorcycle bomb kills one in Kandahar (south).

The attacks by the Islamist insurgency intensified in Afghanistan, where coalition forces have recorded 103 fatalities in June, including 60 U.S. soldiers.

Nine civilians killed in Afghan violence

KABUL: Eight civilians, two of them children, were killed and 14 more wounded when a roadside bomb struck a minivan in eastern Afghanistan, police and a doctor said Monday.

The victims were among a group of people travelling in Paktia province late Sunday when the bomb exploded, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Dastagir Rustamyar told foreign news agency.

“Yesterday evening along the road to Zurmat a civilian minivan struck a roadside bomb, as a result of which eight civilians were killed,” he said.

Doctor Mohammad Nader said the bodies of four men, two women and two children had been brought to the main hospital in Paktia. Another eight wounded were also admitted, he said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. One civilian was killed and two guards injured in a suicide attack near foreign troops base in Khost.

Two killed in Afghan bombings: police

KANDAHAR: Two civilians were killed Monday when two bombs apparently aimed at a police commander exploded in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, police said.

The bombs, home-made devices widely seen in Taliban insurgent attacks, were set off within a minute of each other as a police convoy passed by, deputy provincial police chief Fazil Ahmad Sherzad said.

Rescuers ordered to enter China”s flooded mine

BEIJING: Rescuers at a colliery in China have been ordered to enter a flooded mine shaft where 153 workers have been trapped for six days, state-run television reported Saturday.

The order came after rescuers at the Wangjialing coal mine heard a tapping sound coming up a pipe on Friday, bringing a glimmer of hope that some of the missing in the northern province of Shanxi had survived the flood on Sunday.

There have been no further signs of life since rescuers heard the tapping sound, state television said.

State media said divers were preparing to enter the flooded mine but did not say when they would go down the shaft.

At least 3,000 rescuers have been racing against time to pump water out of the vast coal mine and reach the missing workers.

Authorities had maintained a faint hope that some workers may have survived if they were working on platforms above danger levels, and Friday”s news from the mine indicated this might have been the case.

Rescuers had inserted a pipe into the shaft as part of the rescue effort. When they took it out, an iron wire had been attached to it, apparently by one of the trapped, a local news agency quoted a rescue official as saying.

They have sent a bucket down the narrow hole with food provisions, pens, paper and communication equipment, the news agency said.

20 civilians killed in Somali capital

MOGADISHU: At least 20 people were killed Friday after an intense battle between government forces and Islamic insurgents in the Somali capital, medical officials said. Friday”s fighting follows a lull of about two weeks, since scores of civilians were killed in two days of violence in the capital.

Military spokesman Col. Ibrahim Kalmoy said the fighting started when insurgents attacked government soldiers in southern Mogadishuin the Taleh area. He said three soldiers were wounded during the fighting.

`The enemy was forced to disappear,”” said Kalmoy. African Union troops, deployed in Mogadishu to guard key government installations, backed the government troops during the fighting.

Afghanistan world”s top cannabis source: U.N.

VIENNA: Long the world”s largest producer of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin, Afghanistan has now become the top supplier of cannabis, with large-scale cultivation in half of its provinces, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Between 10,000 and 24,000 hectares of cannabis are grown every year in Afghanistan, with major cultivation in 17 out 34 provinces, the U.N. drug agency (UNODC) said in its first report on cannabis production in Afghanistan.

While some countries grow cannabis on more land, Afghanistan”s robust crop yields — 145 kg of resin per hectare compared to around 40 kg per hectare in Morocco — make it the world”s largest producer, estimated at 1,500-3,500 metric tons a year.

“This report shows that Afghanistan”s drug problem is even more complex than just the opium trade,” said Antonio Maria Costa, head of UNODC in the report.

“Reducing Afghanistan”s cannabis supply should be dealt with more seriously, as part of the national drug control strategy.”

For years Afghanistan has been the world”s largest producer of opium, a paste extracted from poppies and processed into heroin. While land cultivated with poppies fell by 22 percent last year, record yields meant production fell only 10 percent.

The illegal opium trade is said to fuel the insurgency in Afghanistan with the Taliban siphoning off millions of dollars from the trade by imposing taxes on farmers and smugglers in return for ensuring safe passage of the drug.

“Like opium, cannabis cultivation, production and trafficking are taxed by those who control the territory, providing an additional source of revenue for insurgents,” the report said.

As with opium, most cannabis cultivation takes place in the south of the country where the insurgency is strongest, UNODC said, with more than two-thirds (67 percent) of cannabis farmers also growing opium.

One of the main reasons cannabis is so widely grown, UNODC said, is because of its low labor costs and high returns. Three times cheaper to cultivate than opium, the net income from a hectare of cannabis is $3,341 compared to $2,005 for opium.

While cannabis production in 2009 was valued at an estimated $39-94 million, this is only about 10-20 percent of the total farm-gate value of Afghanistan”s opium production, because so much more opium is grown.

While some of the cannabis is consumed within Afghanistan, most of the drug is smuggled abroad following the same routes as opium, UNODC said. In 2008, 245,000 kg of cannabis was seized in southern Kandahar near to the border with Pakistan.

“As with opium, the bottom line is to improve security and development in drug-producing regions in order to wean farmers off illicit crops and into sustainable, licit livelihoods, and to deny insurgents another source of illicit income,” Costa said.

Suicide attack kills 7 civilians in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR: At least seven Afghan civilians were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up close to where government officials were distributing aid to people in a town in Afghanistan”s southern Helmand province, a provincial official said.

Five people were wounded in the attack in Babaji, outside Lashkar Gah, Helmand”s provincial capital, said Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for Helmand”s governor.

Ahmadi did not know if any officials were among the casualties.

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