30 militants killed in Afghanistan

[David]

AP


KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition troops killed more than 30 insurgents in a battle in eastern Afghanistan while three Polish soldiers serving with NATO forces died in a roadside blast elsewhere, officials said Thursday.

Lutfullah Mashal, the governor of Laghman province, said coalition bombs targeted fighters fleeing the valley where an attack killed 10 French soldiers on Monday.

Wednesday's bombing on the border of Laghman and Kabul provinces wasn't directly in retaliation for the ambush, Mashal said. The militants targeted in this attack had been involved in "repeated attacks on the highways. They burned tankers repeatedly," he said.

Monday's massive Taliban ambush near Kabul killed 10 French paratroopers and wounded 21 others. It was the deadliest ground attack by insurgents on foreign troops in the country since the U.S. invasion in 2001.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, Capt. Scott Miller, said the bombing was in the same area as the French attack but "it wasn't a retaliation."

"I think it goes to show there's a lot of bad guys out there," Miller said.

The coalition said 200 civilians fled the area before the airstrike. More than 30 militants were killed and one militant was wounded and taken for treatment after the clash, it said.

Afghan officials said about 20 civilians were wounded in the fighting. Mashal said it wasn't clear if the coalition bombs wounded the Afghans or if Taliban fighters had.

Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the provincial health ministry, said 21 civilians were wounded, including eight women, eight men, and five children. Laghman deputy police chief Najibullah Hotak said one civilian had died in the fight and that 20 were wounded.

The three Polish soldiers died Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded in the central province of Ghazni, said Polish Defense Ministry spokesman Jacek Poplawski. A fourth soldier was wounded in the blast.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Kabul on Wednesday to pledge continued support for a war which has become bloodier and more difficult each year since the Taliban's ouster.

"A part of the world's freedom is at stake here. This is where the fight against terrorism is being waged," Sarkozy said.

Meanwhile, French Defense Minister Herve Morin responded to a Le Monde newspaper report citing survivors of the ambush that it took hours for backup to arrive, and that French troops were hit by friendly fire from NATO planes.

Morin said on RTL radio that reinforcements were sent within about 20 minutes of the ambush and there were no signs of French casualties from friendly fire.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also was in Afghanistan Thursday, stopping over on his way to the Olympic Games in China. He told British troops in the southern province of Helmand they were preventing terror attacks at home by fighting Taliban insurgents. Brown then flew to Kabul for meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

NATO and Afghan officials blame the surging violence in part on the ease with which militants can cross from safe havens in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal areas.

On Wednesday evening, missiles destroyed a compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region which Pakistani intelligence officials said was frequented by foreign militants.

Between five and 10 people were believed killed, though their identities were not immediately known, the officials said.

It was also unclear who carried out the attack, though similar attacks in the past by U.S. drone aircraft have killed senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. Capt. Christian Patterson, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said the coalition did not fire missiles into Pakistan on Wednesday.

Militants are also engaged with Pakistani security forces in at least two regions on that side of the border. Hundreds have reportedly died and tens of thousands have been displaced in that fighting in recent weeks.

Western officials complain that Pakistan is not putting enough pressure on militants in the tribal areas. The Afghan government also has accused Pakistan's spy agencies of secretly supporting the Taliban.

Pakistan denies the charges and insists army troops deployed in the border region as well as peace deals struck by the government with tribal leaders are helping control militancy.

This year is on course to become the deadliest yet for the international forces in Afghanistan. Some 178 foreign troops, including nearly 100 Americans, have died this year, according to an Associated Press count. In all of 2007, 222 international troops died.

In all, more than 3,400 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.