Afghanistan — Patrol Kills Insurgents Who Threatened Convoy

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2010 — Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force troops killed four occu­pants of a vehi­cle that threat­ened their con­voy in east­ern Afghanistan’s Khost province last night, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.
The con­voy was return­ing to its base camp after clear­ing a road­side bomb when a vehi­cle com­ing from the oppo­site direc­tion approached the lead truck. The ISAF forces tried to flag the vehi­cle down and flashed the lead truck’s lights.
The dri­ver of the uniden­ti­fied vehi­cle respond­ed by turn­ing off his head­lights and accel­er­at­ing toward the con­voy. ISAF per­son­nel then fired warn­ing shots, but the vehi­cle con­tin­ued to accel­er­ate. Sev­er­al rounds were fired in an attempt to dis­able the vehi­cle, and final­ly shots were fired into the vehi­cle itself. 

The ISAF patrol pro­vid­ed imme­di­ate med­ical assis­tance to the vehicle’s occu­pants, but all four died at the scene. Afghan secu­ri­ty forces were imme­di­ate­ly called to secure the site. After the inci­dent, two of the men in the vehi­cle were iden­ti­fied as known insurgents. 

ISAF and Afghan secu­ri­ty forces have begun a joint assess­ment to review the fac­tors lead­ing to this inci­dent, offi­cials said. In oth­er news from Afghanistan: 

— An Afghan-inter­na­tion­al secu­ri­ty force cap­tured a sus­pect­ed Tal­iban com­man­der and sev­er­al oth­er insur­gents in the Kan­da­har dis­trict of Kan­da­har province last night. The sus­pect­ed Tal­iban com­man­der is believed to be respon­si­ble for buy­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing weapons and for han­dling mil­i­tant cell finan­cial responsibilities. 

— In the Qalat dis­trict of Zab­ul province last night, a com­bined force cap­tured a sus­pect­ed Tal­iban road­side-bomb facil­i­ta­tor believed to be respon­si­ble for attacks on coali­tion forces and to have close ties to oth­er insur­gent net­works. When con­front­ed, the facil­i­ta­tor iden­ti­fied him­self and sur­ren­dered. A few oth­er sus­pect­ed insur­gents also were detained.

— In the Now Zad dis­trict of Hel­mand province yes­ter­day, an ISAF patrol found a road­side bomb con­sist­ing of more than 100 pounds of home­made explo­sives and a pres­sure-plate ini­ti­a­tion device. 

— An Afghan-inter­na­tion­al patrol found four road­side bombs in Hel­mand province’s Nad‑e Ali dis­trict yes­ter­day. Two of the bombs con­sist­ed of pres­sure-plate ini­ti­a­tion devices and 20 pounds of home­made explo­sive each. The oth­ers had remote-con­trolled det­o­na­tors and 40 pounds of home­made explo­sive each. 

No shots were fired, and no Afghan civil­ians were harmed dur­ing these oper­a­tions, offi­cials said. 

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