Airstrike Kills More Than 35 Insurgents in Kunar Province

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18, 2011 — A U.S. mil­i­tary air weapons team last night killed more than 35 ene­my fight­ers in the Ghazi­abad dis­trict of Afghanistan’s Khost province, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.
The air weapons team, con­duct­ing a rou­tine aer­i­al secu­ri­ty patrol, fired on numer­ous insur­gents behav­ing in a hos­tile man­ner, offi­cials said. A large num­ber of insur­gents emerged from a near­by build­ing after the shoot­ing began, and the air weapons team engaged them for more than four hours, they added.

In oth­er news yes­ter­day through­out Afghanistan: 

— Forces killed sev­er­al ene­my fight­ers and wound­ed sev­er­al oth­ers dur­ing a gun bat­tle in Kunar province’s Kunar dis­trict after a group of insur­gents ambushed the troops with small-arms fire. 

— Secu­ri­ty forces killed an armed insur­gent and cap­tured a Hezb‑e Islam­ic Gul­bud­din ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion leader report­ed­ly respon­si­ble for car­ry­ing out numer­ous bomb­ing attacks and shoot­ings on troops in Nan­garhar province’s Khugyani dis­trict. The insur­gent was shot after he opened fire on patrolling troops. 

— Act­ing on tips from local res­i­dents, Afghan and coali­tion troops in Khost province’s Khost dis­trict detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents, includ­ing a Haqan­ni net­work ter­ror­ist leader who is respon­si­ble for traf­fick­ing weapons from Pak­istan to for­eign fight­ers in Afghanistan. 

— Forces detained two sus­pect­ed insur­gents while search­ing for a Tal­iban weapons traf­fick­er in Zab­ul province’s Qalat dis­trict. The tar­get­ed traf­fick­er report­ed­ly is plan­ning to pro­vide local ene­my fight­ers with numer­ous assault rifles and more than 30,000 rounds of ammunition. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces detained a Tal­iban dis­trict leader and anoth­er sus­pect­ed insur­gent in Ghazni province’s Ghazni dis­trict. The Tal­iban leader report­ed­ly is respon­si­ble for launch­ing attacks on local secu­ri­ty forces. 

— Forces detained two sus­pect­ed insur­gents, includ­ing a Haqan­ni net­work ter­ror­ist leader who is believed to be con­nect­ed to numer­ous attacks on local secu­ri­ty forces, in Khost province’s Sabari district. 

— Secu­ri­ty forces found sev­er­al drug and weapons stock­piles through­out Afghanistan. The oper­a­tions result­ed in seizure of more than 270 assault rifle rounds, 100 assort­ed rock­ets and mor­tars, sev­en assault rifles, four pis­tols, four hand grenades and a home­made bomb with 50 pounds of explo­sives. Troops also con­fis­cat­ed more than 4,300 pounds of opi­um, 1,540 pounds of hero­in, 462 pounds of acetic anhy­dride, 110 pounds of mor­phine and 13 gal­lons of ammo­ni­um chloride. 

Source:
Com­piled from Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force Joint Com­mand News Releases 

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