Hundreds of US Marines and Afghan special forces on Saturday trekked far into remote Afghan mountains to retake a valley controlled by militants suspected of ambushing a team of US commandos and shooting down a special forces helicopter.
The major offensive in eastern Kunar Province, near the border with Pakistan, is the biggest yet against those believed responsible for the twin attacks on June 28, the deadliest blow for US forces in Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban in 2001.
Three members of a four-man Navy SEAL team were killed in the ambush, and all 16 troops on board the Chinook chopper that was sent to rescue them died when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Saturday's offensive came after a deadly week for US forces in Afghanistan. Seven American troops have died, as well as dozens of suspected militants and civilians, reinforcing concerns that crucial elections next month to choose lawmakers for a new legislature may be threatened by widespread violence.
Hundreds of Afghan rebels, as well as militants from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Chechnya, are thought to be hiding in Kunar's Korengal Valley and are intent on disrupting the elections, according to US military and Afghan special forces commanders in the area.
"We want them running for their lives way up in the hills where they can't attack polling stations," said Captain John Moshane, of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, based in Hawaii. "We want to isolate them from the community."
US and Afghan forces started moving into position at one end of the valley on Thursday, about 190km east of the capital Kabul. They were digging mortar and machine-gun pits for a temporary resupply base in the middle of a corn field near Kandagal, a village of about 100 farmers and their families.
The move sparked an immediate response from the militants, who attacked a nearby US base and a convoy of troops with rockets, but they all missed.
US and Afghan troops started hiking into the rugged mountains on Friday and Saturday, as A-10 attack aircraft circled high above. Many of the teams led lines of donkeys laden with food and water. The operation was expected to last at least two weeks, Moshane said.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS