Six foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan were killed in separate attacks over the weekend, NATO said, while a woman and two children died in an operation against al-Qaeda-linked insurgents.
NATO also reported the death of one of its soldiers on Friday, bringing to 451 the number to die in the Afghan war so far this year, an AFP tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org Web site showed.
The identities of the dead soldiers were not revealed, in accordance with NATO policy.
Statements said four soldiers were killed yesterday in separate attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Three soldiers, one on Friday and two on Saturday, also died in separate insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan.
Another died on Saturday, a separate statement said, following a Taliban-style bomb attack.
In another operation, three Afghan police officers were killed accidentally in an airstrike aimed at insurgents in Jawzjan Province, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said.
Afghan national security forces (ANSF) had called in backup during a firefight on Friday with an unknown number of insurgents, it said.
“In order to suppress the threat, [Afghan security forces] requested coalition close air support, which was provided by an air weapons team of two helicopters,” ISAF said in a statement. “The air weapons team fired a hellfire missile and 30mm rounds toward an identified firing position. During a subsequent battle-damage assessment, it was discovered three Afghan national police were accidentally killed and several more wounded during the air weapons team engagement.”
The incident was under investigation, ISAF said.
ISAF said in a separate statement that a civilian woman and two children were “accidentally killed” on Friday in an operation in western Farah Province, another insurgency hotspot.
Afghan and coalition forces were pursuing a “Taliban foreign fighter facilitator ... known to traffic foreign fighters and weapons from Iran and associate with senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership,” it said.
“During the operation, six insurgents were killed and several suspected insurgents were detained. Also during the operation, a civilian woman and two children were accidentally killed when a coalition force air weapons team engaged the insurgents,” it said.
Meanwhile, suspected US missiles fired from an unmanned drone killed six militants in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said.
The missiles struck two vehicles on Saturday in Anghar Kala village near Miran Shah in North Waziristan — the second such attack since massive floods hit Pakistan in late last month. The officials said some of the dead militants may be foreigners.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to the media.
The tribal region is a haven for various Islamist militant groups. The main organization operating there is the Haqqani network, which focuses on attacking US and NATO troops across border in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s leadership has raised concerns that the insurgents might exploit instability and chaos caused by the massive flooding, the country’s worst-ever natural disaster. The US has tried to improve its public image in Pakistan by sending significant flood aid, though Saturday’s airstrike shows it is not willing to abandon the widely unpopular drone attacks.
The US rarely discusses the covert, CIA-run missile campaign, but officials have said in the past it has proven a valuable tool in the battle against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters sheltering in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Pakistani officials publicly condemn the airstrikes, but it is believed they have given tacit approval.
Separately, a bomb exploded at a checkpoint jointly manned by pro-government tribesmen and police in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing six people, government official Javed Khan said.
The attack happened in Mohmand, a tribal region 75km northwest of the main city of Peshawar. The dead included a policeman, a passer-by and four members of a peace committee set up to check militant movements, he said.
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