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Troops kill 'scores of Taleban'
Nato-led forces and Afghan troops have killed scores of Taleban fighters in the western province of Herat, a coalition statement says.
It said 87 had been killed in a 14-hour battle on Sunday, 49 died two days earlier and one US soldier died.
There is no independent confirmation or word from the Taleban on the deaths. It would be their worst losses this year.
Meanwhile in the southern province of Helmand, UK-led forces have launched a major offensive against the Taleban.
Up to 3,000 Nato troops, including Afghans and US forces, are involved in Operation Silicon in the Sangin Valley.
Protests
The clashes near Shindand, about 120km (80 miles) south of the city of Herat, are among the bloodiest the province has seen in recent years, reports say.
The troops called in air support which dropped "multiple munitions on several identified enemy locations".
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6606535.stm
There is no independent confirmation or word from the Taleban on the deaths. It would be their worst losses this year.
Meanwhile in the southern province of Helmand, UK-led forces have launched a major offensive against the Taleban.
Up to 3,000 Nato troops, including Afghans and US forces, are involved in Operation Silicon in the Sangin Valley.
Protests
The clashes near Shindand, about 120km (80 miles) south of the city of Herat, are among the bloodiest the province has seen in recent years, reports say.
The troops called in air support which dropped "multiple munitions on several identified enemy locations".
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6606535.stm
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Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
British forces launched a major assault on Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan early this morning, coalition officials said.
The advance began as Nato said US-led troops had killed at least 136 suspected Taliban fighters in the southern province of Herat in a separate attack.
A long column of armoured vehicles carried hundreds of British soldiers into the Sangin Valley, near the town of Gereshk in Helmand province, before dawn.
Reporters travelling with the convoy saw British troops come under fire from mortars and machine guns as they fanned out through the area on foot, prompting Apache helicopters to fly overhead, although they did not open fire.
"It is all part of a longer-term plan to restore the whole of Helmand to government control," said Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Carver, a British commander. "You have to do it a piece at a time."
The British-led offensive, officially known as Operation Silicon, involves more than 3,000 Nato and Afghan forces. It forms part of a continued operation in Sangin which, according to a Nato statement, has seen more than 150 Taliban fighters killed over the past three weeks.
More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2068726,00.html
Operation Silicon, involving more than 2,000 Nato and Afghan troops, was launched before dawn in the Sangin valley area of Helmand province.
In the first hours of the operation, several Taliban compounds were seized and destroyed amid moderate resistance from the group's fighters, said a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) Regional Command South.
Lt Col Stephane Grenier said that Operation Silicon was part of the wider Operation Achilles launched in early March to prepare the ground for reconstruction work in the area by President Hamid Karzai's Afghan government.
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "The Operation Achilles goal is to set the enduring security conditions in northern Helmand to allow the government to start reconstruction projects in the northern Helmand area, leading up to the eventual reconstruction of the Kajaki dam.
"Tactically, this set of tactical manoeuvres is yet another move on Isaf's behalf to further exploit the Taliban, who have been taken off guard since March 6.
"This operation is just another of dozens of similar operations that we have conducted under Operation Achilles since the beginning of March.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2496858.ece
Major Dominic Biddick, who commanded a company of British troops in the operation, said the men died on Monday when British, Danish and Afghan troops fought their way up the Sangin Valley.
Biddick said the troops detained several more suspected fighters and discovered an arms cache during "a full day of fighting".
One British soldier was wounded, he said, without providing any details of his condition.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5F23FB0D-E779-4421-81DC-21783111C7E6.htm