By Zhang Yunlong, Xinhua,
Kabul : An anti-insurgents operation of the U.S.-led Coalition forces have left several militants killed and one female civilian dead in eastern Afghan province of Paktia, a Coalition statement issued here Friday said.
The Coalition forces while searching compounds in Zurmat district Thursday to target two militant leaders were engaged by armed militants, it said.
“The force responded with small-arms fire and air strikes, killing several militants and a woman who was located with the attacking militants in the building,” it said.
One militant detonated a suicide-vest bomb in the compound, killing only himself, according to the U.S.-led military. It said multiple AK-47s, a sniper rifle, ammunition vests, small-arms ammunition and grenades were discovered in the operation.
In neighboring Ghazni province, the Coalition forces Thursday conducted precision air strikes on an alleged militant compound in Andar district, destroying the building, where the forces said it did not encounter any militants or other occupants.
These operations came days after U.S.-led Coalition forces in an air strike reportedly bombed a check post in Pakistan’s Mohmand tribal agency near the Afghan-Pakistani border Tuesday night, leaving 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers dead. Pakistani government and military has strongly denounced the “unprovoked and senseless” attack. However, the Coalition said the strike was conducted in response to anti-Afghan forces firing on the U.S.-led military.
Around 20,000 multi-national Coalition forces, with U.S. troops being the backbone, are deployed across Afghanistan to conduct anti-insurgents mission and help in reconstruction. They had been blamed several times for launching cross-border strikes inside Pakistani soil on alleged militants but causing casualties to Pakistani military personnel or civilians.
Elsewhere, the Paris Conference, a fund-raiser for supporting Afghanistan rebuilding process, was concluded Thursday in the French capital with international community pledging around 20 billion U.S. dollars’ aid to the war-battered Afghanistan in the coming years.
Six and half years on since the hard-line Taliban regime was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan, though witnessing progress, is receiving sharp criticism from ordinary citizens and western world on its incapability in checking corruption and drug trafficking and its persisting insecurity.
The Taliban militants continue to exert its influence through nationwide bombing attacks and ambushes and insurgency-related conflicts and valence left as many as 8,000 people including 1,500civilians dead last year, a bloodiest one since 2001.