Arab News

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, 29 June 2003 — US troops on patrol in southeast Afghanistan clashed with a group of 10 men armed with rocket-propelled grenades but there were no casualties, a US military spokesman said yesterday.

“A Task Force Devil patrol engaged 10 enemy fighters in the vicinity of the fire base at Shkin in Paktika province late yesterday (Friday) afternoon,” Col. Rodney Davis told reporters at Bagram Air Base 50 kilometers north of Kabul.

Davis said one of the men fired a grenade at the American soldiers, who replied with 105mm high-explosive rounds and called in an AH-64 Apache helicopter for support. There were no coalition casualties and no evidence of any casualties among the armed group, he said. “We didn’t take any personnel under our control,” he said.

Davis did not identify the armed men but such attacks are usually blamed on Taleban remnants and their Al-Qaeda allies or extremists of former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar is trying to topple President Hamid Karzai’s government and has been declared a wanted terrorist by the United States.

Some 500 US-led troops and Afghan militiamen have been carrying out a major operation against suspected Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters along Afghanistan’s rugged eastern border in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces just north of Paktika.

In a separate incident, a US soldier died of his injuries yesterday after his vehicle overturned in a ditch in southeast Afghanistan, the US military said. “A US Army soldier assigned to Task Force Devil died this morning at approximately 6:15 a.m. (0145 GMT) at Bagram Air Base,” the military said in a statement.

The soldier was medically evacuated to Bagram Air Base after the two-and-a-half ton vehicle overturned near Urgun-e fire base in Paktika province, near the Pakistan border. The identity of the soldier, who was a gunner in the vehicle, was being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

An investigation was being conducted into the cause of the accident. With the latest death, at least 67 US troops have died in Afghanistan since the October 2001 start of military operations to topple the Taliban. Around 30 have died under hostile fire and 37 in accidents. An American soldier was killed Wednesday in a firefight in neighboring Paktia province.

A US-led coalition force of some 11,500 troops is currently hunting down fugitive Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters mainly in southeast provinces bordering Pakistan.

Britain said yesterday it would send more troops to Afghanistan to aid the country’s transitional government in tackling lawlessness. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said in London around 50 troops and civilian staff would arrive in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif in early July.

A further eight teams, some of which would not be British-led, would follow in the coming months, he said. The deployment comes amid concerns about worsening security and a failure to restore democracy to Afghanistan 18-months after the fall of the Taleban. The country’s interim government has struggled to impose its authority outside the capital Kabul.

Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, who announced the deployment of a provincial reconstruction team in May, said the troops would focus on improving dialogue between local warlords and politicians. “By encouraging and facilitating dialogue between all the political groups and militias around Mazar-e-Sharif, the team will contribute towards the Afghans themselves creating a safer and more stable environment,” Hoon said. He added that the troops were expected to remain in Afghanistan for up to two years.

In another development, the living conditions of Afghan asylum seekers in Australia and at its offshore detention center in Nauru was described as “distressing” yesterday by visiting Afghan Refugee and Repatriation Minister Enayatullah Nazari. Nazari made the comment after meeting Afghan refugees at the Baxter detention center in South Australia and those on three-year temporary protection visas living in Melbourne.

Nazari also visited Afghan asylum seekers in the South Pacific island nation of Nauru. “I wanted to learn how they were and, of course, to see their physical and psychological condition was distressing and made me upset,” he told Australia’s AAP news agency.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said most Afghan asylum seekers in Australia would be returning home. He said 417 had already taken up repatriation packages and returned. A further 157 were volunteering to follow them, which would leave 441 in detention.