Afghan commandos kill 22 insurgents

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan commandos killed 22 insurgents on Monday during an operation to capture a Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan, police and the U.S. military said.

The raid was carried out in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar when a team of commandos raided a village looking for the Taliban leader, the U.S.-led Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force said in an announcement.

During the raid, insurgents opened fire on the soldiers and 22 of the Taliban were killed, the task forces said.

Masoum Khan Hashimi, the deputy police chief of Nangarhar province, said there were no casualties among the security forces or civilians. He said the Taliban commander, Jamal Faroqi, was killed in the pre-dawn raid and 10 insurgents were captured.

In another operation, NATO said a team of Afghan and coalition special forces captured a senior leader of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. The group, which is banned in Pakistan, is blamed for the November 2008 rampage in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people. It said he was captured in the Anadar district of eastern Ghazni province — a lawless area that is a major infiltration point for insurgents travelling into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

"The leader is alleged to have planned and participated in multiple attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout Kunar, Kandahar and Ghazni provinces. He is known to have links to multiple foreign fighters, and was actively planning a high-profile attack at the time of his arrest," NATO said in an announcement. It did not provide further details.

There have been increasing reports that insurgents from Pakistan, including members of the Pakistani Taliban, have joined Afghan insurgents in the fight against government and foreign forces. Many Afghan Taliban take sanctuary in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas over the harsh winter months and come across the frontier during the spring thaw. Violence has increased in recent weeks as more and more Taliban join the fighting.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have deteriorated in recent months, with Afghanistan accusing Pakistan of trying to torpedo efforts to begin peace talks with the Taliban. Both countries have also accused each other of supporting insurgents fighting on their respective territories.

In the most recent exchange President Hamid Karzai charged late Sunday that Pakistan was setting up a border gate in eastern Afghanistan without asking Kabul. He ordered his ministries of foreign affairs, defense and interior to remove the gate and all installations around it. It was unclear how they would do that as Pakistan claims the facility is inside its border.

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi also said Afghanistan was investigating the participation of Pakistani Taliban in an attack last week that killed 13 Afghan soldiers at a small base in eastern Kunar province.

In other violence, Afghan officials said a roadside bomb killed at least seven members of a family travelling in a trailer towed by a tractor in southern Afghanistan.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the vehicle hit the bomb on a road in the Mali Zai region of Zabul province just after daybreak on Monday. It said four other people were wounded by the blast, which the ministry blamed on the Taliban.

A spokesman for the provincial governor, Shareef Nasari, says the death toll could be as high as eight. He says all the dead are members of the same family.

A roadside bomb also killed four Afghan police and wounded three overnight in southern Helmand province, Musa Qala district chief Enayamatullah Khan said.

Another two policemen were killed and six kidnapped during a Taliban attack on an outpost in northern Zawzjan province, according to Gen. Abdul Aziz Ghairat, the police chief.

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Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.

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UN condemns targeting of insurgents in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan officials released harrowing new details on Thursday about an attack in a western province where assailants shot everyone in their path, sending terrified people jumping from windows trying to escape the assailants who killed at least 46 civilians and security forces.

Civilians have frequently been caught up in the fighting between militants and Afghan and U.S.-led combat forces, but the U.N. condemned Wednesday's attack, saying civilians were deliberately targeted at the courthouse and other government offices in Farah province. Two judges, six prosecutors, administration officers and cleaners working at the site were among the dead, the U.N. said.

Also Thursday, NATO reported that an American F-16 fighter jet had crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing the U.S. pilot. The U.S.-led military coalition did not release further details about Wednesday's crash.

"While the cause of the crash is under investigation, initial reporting indicates there was no insurgent activity in the area at the time of the crash," the coalition said in a statement.

Illustrating other dangers, an airstrike by U.S.-led forces mistakenly killed four policemen and two brothers as their car was being searched at a checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Thursday.

The strike occurred in the Deh Yak district of Ghazni province, according to district chief Fazel Ahmad Toolwak. He said NATO troops were fighting Taliban militants about 10 kilometers (six miles) away, but those killed in the strike were not involved in that battle.

A NATO spokesman, U.S. Army Maj. Adam Wojack, said the international military coalition was looking into the report, adding it "takes all allegations of this type seriously."

According to a recent U.N. report, 2,754 Afghan civilians were killed last year — down 12 percent from 3,131 killed in 2011. But the number killed in the second half of last year rose, suggesting that Afghanistan is likely to face continued violence as the Taliban and other militants fight for control of the country as foreign forces continue their withdrawal.

The U.N. said the Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 81 percent of the civilian deaths and injuries last year, while 8 percent were attributed to pro-government forces. The remaining civilian deaths and injuries could not be attributed to either side.

The number of casualties blamed on U.S. and allied forces decreased by 46 percent, with 316 killed and 271 wounded last year. Most were killed in U.S. and NATO airstrikes, although that number, too, dropped by nearly half last year to 126, including 51 children.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in Farah, the capital of the province of the same name near the border with Iran.

The hospital in Farah was so overwhelmed with casualties that helicopters had to ferry some of the wounded to other hospitals in nearby areas.

Provincial Gov. Akram Akhpelwak said two more people had died from the attack, raising the death toll to 55 — 36 civilians, 10 Afghan security forces and nine attackers. More than 100 people also were wounded, he said.

One of the province's members of parliament, Humaira Ayobi, said one elderly man was found hiding in a bathroom, afraid to come out.

"Farah is a city of sadness," she said in a telephone call after attending a funeral for some of the victims. "The stores are closed. There's no traffic in the streets."

The attack began when two suicide bombers detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the courthouse, shattering windows and devastating several buildings. Seven others jumped out of the pickup and ran toward the courthouse and attorney general's office, prompting an eight-hour gunbattle that left many buildings pockmarked from bullets and rocket-propelled grenades.

Ayobi said the attackers went from room to room shooting people, including nearly two dozen people who had taken refuge in a basement. She also said two judges were singled out to be killed in a separate room, and that their bodies were burned.

The attackers were wearing military-style uniforms easily bought in Afghan markets and had painted a pickup in camouflage to disguise it as an Afghan National Army vehicle so it could bypass checkpoints, she said.

An Associated Press photo shows a group of soldiers standing over the body of one of the slain attackers who was lying in a pool of blood and wearing a uniform nearly identical to theirs.

Local officials said Wednesday that they believed the attackers were trying to free 15 Taliban prisoners who were about to stand trial. But Ayobi said the initial target might have been the governor's compound until heavy security there forced the attackers to redirect themselves to the courthouse.

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Follow Kim Gamel on Twitter at https://twitter.com/kimgamel

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Insurgents launch 4 attacks in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A series of early morning attacks hit eastern Afghanistan Sunday, with three separate suicide bombings in outlying provinces and a shootout between security forces and a would-be attacker in the capital city of Kabul.

The deadliest attack was a suicide car bombing at a state intelligence site just after sunrise in the eastern city of Jalalabad. In that attack, a car approached the gate of a compound used by the National Directorate of Security and exploded, killing two guards and wounding three others, said regional government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai. The building was damaged in the attack, he added.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Shortly before the Jalalabad attack, an assailant detonated a van packed with explosives at a highway police checkpoint in Logar province, also in the east. That explosion wounded three police officers but no one was killed, said Deputy Police Chief Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai.

In Kabul, meanwhile, police shot and killed a would-be suicide bomber who was trying to attack an intelligence agency office downtown, according to the city's deputy police chief, Gen. Mohammad Daud Amin. Intelligence agents spotted the bomber before he could detonate the explosives in his vehicle and shot him, Amin said.

The explosives in the vehicle were later defused, he added.

Later in the morning, a man wearing a suicide vest blew himself up outside the police headquarters for Baraki Barak district in Logar province. The man was stopped by police as he tried to force his way into the building, but still managed to detonate his vest, said Din Mohammad Darwesh, the provincial government spokesman.

One policeman was wounded in the Baraki Barak attack, Darwesh said.

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