Officials Investigate Afghanistan Shooting Incident

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2010 — A gun­man in an Afghan Bor­der Police uni­form turned his weapon against coali­tion forces dur­ing a train­ing mis­sion in east­ern Afghanistan today, killing six Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force ser­vice­mem­bers, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.
The gun­man also was killed, offi­cials said, and a com­bined Afghan and ISAF team is inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent.

Also today in Afghanistan, two Afghan chil­dren were killed and anoth­er was wound­ed in a road­side-bomb device blast in Kan­da­har province’s Pan­jwayi dis­trict. Afghan sol­diers and an ISAF patrol respond­ed to the scene, where ISAF medics treat­ed the wound­ed child. 

ISAF Joint Com­mand offi­cials also pro­vid­ed details on recent operations. 

In oper­a­tions yesterday: 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces killed four armed insur­gents who threat­ened them in Pak­tia province’s Zur­mat dis­trict. Peo­ple at the scene report­ed they did not know who the insur­gents were and that they had arrived that evening, offi­cials said. The com­bined secu­ri­ty force was seek­ing a Tal­iban leader who coor­di­nates the plant­i­ng of road­side bombs and con­ducts attacks against Afghan and coali­tion forces and ele­ments of the local provin­cial recon­struc­tion team. After ques­tion­ing peo­ple at the scene, the secu­ri­ty force detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents and found a dozen hand grenades, ammu­ni­tion, bay­o­nets, bomb com­po­nents and mil­i­tary uniforms. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces cap­tured a senior Tal­iban leader and two of his asso­ciates dur­ing an intel­li­gence-based oper­a­tion in War­dak province’s Sayyid­abad dis­trict. The Tal­iban leader con­duct­ed road­side-bomb and direct-fire attacks along High­way 1 and oth­er pub­lic roads in Tan­gi Val­ley. The cap­tured leader also is linked tokid­nap­ping oper­a­tions against Afghan civil­ians, offi­cials said. 

— A part­nered secu­ri­ty force act­ing on intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion detained numer­ous sus­pect­ed insur­gents while search­ing for a Haqqani ter­ror­ist net­work facil­i­ta­tor who pro­vides weapons and ammu­ni­tion to mul­ti­ple insur­gent groups in Khost province’s Sabari district. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces in Farah province’s Bak­wah dis­trict detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents as they tar­get­ed a Tal­iban leader as they were search­ing for an Iran-based facil­i­ta­tor for for­eign fight­ers and weapons. 

— In Kan­da­har province’s Pan­jwai dis­trict, a com­bined force act­ing on intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents as they tar­get­ed an ene­my bomb-attack leader. The tar­get­ed indi­vid­ual is known to oper­ate in the province’s Spin Boldak dis­trict to con­duct attacks against Afghan police and coali­tion forces, and he’s report­ed to be in the plan­ning stages of sui­cide-bomb attack oper­a­tions in addi­tion to being respon­si­ble for build­ing vehi­cle-borne bombs, offi­cials said. 

— ISAF forces found and destroyed 1,653 pounds of home­made explo­sives in Hel­mand province’s Mar­ja dis­trict while respond­ing to reports of an explosion. 

— ISAF forces killed a Tal­iban leader dur­ing an airstrike in Helmand’s Nad‑e Ali dis­trict. The tar­get­ed Tal­iban leader planned and coor­di­nat­ed road­side-bomb attacks, and senior Tal­iban lead­ers in Pak­istan used him as a key con­duit of infor­ma­tion to low­er-lev­el lead­ers in the dis­trict, offi­cials said. Mul­ti­ple intel­li­gence sources and tips from local Afghans led ISAF forces to the Tal­iban leader’s loca­tion. They tracked him through­out the day as he moved from one loca­tion to anoth­er con­duct­ing what appeared to be meet­ings with oth­er insur­gents. Dur­ing a stop, he moved alone on foot and walked into an open field. After con­firm­ing that no civil­ians were near­by, ISAF forces con­duct­ed the airstrike. In Nov. 27 operations: 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents in Helmand’s Nawah-ye Barakzai dis­trict while tar­get­ing a man who, accord­ing to intel­li­gence reports, worked close­ly with two Tal­iban lead­ers detained in the area Oct. 18 and Nov. 15 and report­ed­ly was to move into the vacat­ed lead­er­ship position. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces in Paktika’s Sha­ran dis­trict detained two sus­pect­ed insur­gents dur­ing an intel­li­gence-dri­ven search for a Tal­iban weapons facil­i­ta­tor. In oth­er news from Afghanistan, Afghan and ISAF forces found sev­er­al caches of weapons, explo­sives and bomb com­po­nents Nov. 26 and 27 in south­ern and west­ern Afghanistan. In Helmand’s Mar­ja dis­trict, a com­bined patrol found 3,500 pounds of ammo­ni­um chlo­ride, a banned fer­til­iz­er used in mak­ing road­side bombs. 

An Afghan Nation­al Police patrol in Kan­da­har province’s Arghadab dis­trict found a bomb com­po­nents cache and detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents. The cache con­sist­ed of 20 con­tain­ers of home­made explo­sives, sev­er­al elec­tri­cal com­po­nents, two guns, two ammu­ni­tion mag­a­zines, sev­er­al gun rounds, a 70 mm mor­tar shell, a motor­bike and a vehi­cle. In Farah province’s Qal ah-ye Kah dis­trict, an ISAF patrol found two 107 mm Chi­nese rock­ets, three Pak­istani anti-tank mines, an Ital­ian mine, four 65 mm anti-tank rock­ets, two 85 mm Bul­gar­i­an rock­ets, 46 Chi­nese mor­tar fus­es, sev­en 82 mm Russ­ian mor­tars, an 82 mm Chi­nese mor­tar, four 89 mm U.S. rock­ets, three 75 mm rock­ets and a 122 mm Russ­ian rock­et. In Nov. 26 operations: 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces act­ing on intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents while search­ing for a high-rank­ing Islam­ic Move­ment of Uzbek­istan senior leader in Kun­duz province’s Cha­har Darah dis­trict. The tar­get­ed man facil­i­tates sui­cide bombers from Pak­istan for attacks in the province and acts as a liai­son for Tal­iban in the area, offi­cials said. 

— In Khost’s Tanai dis­trict a com­bined force act­ing on intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion detained numer­ous sus­pect­ed insur­gents dur­ing a search for a senior Haqqani leader respon­si­ble for the facil­i­ta­tion of bomb com­po­nents, weapons and ammu­ni­tion. The secu­ri­ty force found road­side-bomb instruc­tion man­u­als hid­den among Qurans, offi­cials said. They also found auto­mat­ic weapons, mil­i­tary uni­forms and a sig­nif­i­cant amount of ammunition. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces detained a sus­pect­ed insur­gent in Zab­ul province’s Shah Joy dis­trict while search­ing for a Tal­iban bomb­ing cell leader whose oper­a­tions extend from Shah Joy into Ghazni province’s Gelan district. 

— Afghan and coali­tion forces act­ing on intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion detained a key road­side-bomb facil­i­ta­tor and two sus­pect­ed insur­gents in Kan­da­har province’s Kan­da­har dis­trict. He is known to import bomb com­po­nents and fer­til­iz­ers used in home­made explo­sives from a net­work in Chaman, Pak­istan, offi­cials said. 

— Act­ing on intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion, Afghan and coali­tion forces detained a Tal­iban leader and sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents in Helmand’s Nad‑e Ali dis­trict. He is believed to be a sig­nif­i­cant sup­pli­er of home­made explo­sives used in road­side-bomb attacks in Nad‑e Ali and the neigh­bor­ing Lashkar Gah dis­trict. He also taught Tal­iban asso­ciates how to fab­ri­cate and employ road­side bombs. 

— Afghan and coali­tion secu­ri­ty forces killed more than 15 armed insur­gents dur­ing an oper­a­tion in Nan­garhar province’s Sherzad dis­trict. The part­nered force was search­ing for a senior Tal­iban leader and for­eign fight­er facil­i­ta­tor who also rais­es funds for the Tal­iban and plans attacks against Afghan and coali­tion forces. Intel­li­gence tips led the force to a remote com­pound, where they came under imme­di­ate machine-gun and small-arms fire by numer­ous insur­gents flee­ing the area. The secu­ri­ty force respond­ed, killing numer­ous insur­gents. A search of the com­pound yield­ed auto­mat­ic weapons and a sus­pect­ed insur­gent was detained. 

— Insur­gents used indi­rect fire in at least 17 unsuc­cess­ful attempts to strike Afghan and coali­tion forces as a com­bined secu­ri­ty team con­duct­ed a day-long, intel­li­gence-dri­ven sweep to clear Tal­iban cells in Hel­mand province. Two insur­gents were killed and sev­er­al were detained in an oper­a­tion to dis­rupt ter­ror­ist efforts in a Tal­iban-occu­pied area of the province’s Musa Qalah dis­trict. Afghan and coali­tion forces moved through the ter­ror­ist-occu­pied area to dis­rupt the insur­gents’ com­mand-and-con­trol sys­tem and safe-haven activ­i­ties. The Tal­iban mem­bers began launch­ing rock­et-pro­pelled grenades at the secu­ri­ty team in the ear­ly morn­ing hours, but the attack proved inef­fec­tive. No Afghan or coali­tion forces were injured in the hours-long effort. The team searched more than 70 build­ings and found mul­ti­ple weapons caches. 

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

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