Afghan, Coalition Forces Investigate Explosion

Com­piled from Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force Joint Com­mand News Releas­es WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2011 — Afghan and coali­tion forces are inves­ti­gat­ing a road­side bomb explo­sion that killed six Afghan civil­ians, includ­ing two chil­dren, today in Kun­duz province’s Kun­duz dis­trict, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.

Afghan police and coali­tion troops arrived at the scene imme­di­ate­ly to secure the blast site. A coali­tion bomb dis­pos­al team is investigating. 

In oper­a­tions through­out Afghanistan today: 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces repelled an insur­gent attack on their patrol base in Hel­mand province’s Mar­ja dis­trict. Insur­gents used rock­et-pro­pelled grenades and small-arms fire in the attack. Secu­ri­ty forces returned fire, even­tu­al­ly caus­ing the insur­gents to retreat. 

— A coali­tion air­craft dropped ord­nance on an insur­gent fight­ing posi­tion near Kunar province’s Nari dis­trict after insur­gents launched an indi­rect-fire attack on a near­by coali­tion out­post. Troops request­ed the air sup­port once they were able to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy the insur­gents’ loca­tion. No details were released about the num­ber of insur­gents killed or injured. 

— Secu­ri­ty forces found two weapons stock­piles — one in War­dak province’s Sayyid­abad dis­trict and the oth­er in Kan­da­har province’s Pan­jwai dis­trict — and seized 2,350 rounds of assault rifle ammu­ni­tion, 150 .50-cal­iber machine gun rounds, 30 30 mm rounds, sev­en artillery rounds, two frag­men­ta­tion charges and two rock­et-pro­pelled grenades. 

In oper­a­tions yesterday: 

— An Afghan civil­ian was killed and anoth­er was injured in an insur­gent bomb­ing in Uruz­gan province’s Chorah district. 

— Coali­tion troops killed sev­en insur­gents in Kunar province’s Darah-ye Pech dis­trict. The patrolling troops came under attack from an unknown num­ber of insur­gents. After pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy­ing where the attack was com­ing from, troops returned fire, killing the insurgents. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces detained a senior Tal­iban leader in Nan­garhar province’s Cha­parhar dis­trict. The Tal­iban leader is an insur­gent financier con­nect­ed to an inter­na­tion­al drug smug­gling net­work. He also is respon­si­ble for smug­gling for­eign fight­ers into the area. 

— Coali­tion forces used a pre­ci­sion airstrike to destroy a build­ing rigged with explo­sives in Khost province’s Sabari dis­trict. Offi­cials said a Haqqani ter­ror­ist net­work leader is respon­si­ble for rig­ging the build­ing and for sev­er­al oth­er bomb­ing attacks in the area. Local vil­lagers con­firmed that the build­ing had not been occu­pied in five years and was rigged to explode. Troops request­ed the airstrike to elim­i­nate poten­tial dan­gers the build­ing posed for secu­ri­ty forces and civilians. 

— Secu­ri­ty forces found sev­er­al weapons stock­piles through­out the coun­try. The oper­a­tions col­lect­ed 157 assort­ed mor­tars and artillery rounds, 60 pounds of explo­sives, 11 road­side bombs that had been plant­ed, four anti-per­son­nel mines and a missile. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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