War News for Saturday, July 20, 2013

Reported security incidents
#1: The most deadly attack killed five members of the Afghan intelligence service and a policeman, when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the Sangin district of Helmand province, AP said, citing Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the region’s governor. The deputy head of Sangin’s intelligence service was among those who died, the spokesman was reported as saying.

#2: Helmand police spokesman Shamim Noorzia said the other three bombings killed six civilians and two police officers.

#3: Fifteen militants were killed and scores of others were injured in Operation Khyber - II which commenced on July 19 and completed on the 20th as security forces cleared key militant transit points. Four soldiers also died during the gunbattles, officials said. Military sources told Dawn.com that the operation launched in the Kharmatung area, between Frontier Region Kohat and Khyber tribal region’s Bara, had been completed and most of the key areas which served as passage points for insurgents had been cleared.

Twenty-nine Taliban were killed and 24 others wounded in clashes and operations since Friday morning, said the Afghan Interior Ministry and officials on Saturday morning. "In the past 24 hours, the Afghan National Security Forces ( ANSF) and Coalition Forces conducted several cleanup operations in Herat, Ghazni, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktiya provinces. As a result 20 armed Taliban were killed, 12 wounded and six other armed Taliban were arrested by the ANSF," the ministry said in a press statement.

In addition, seven Taliban were killed and 12 wounded in an infighting in Kushki Kuhna district of western Herat province on Friday, the district administrative chief Ahmad Farid told Xinhua, adding the clash took place following collecting of illegal extortion from locals in a pistachio forest in the area some 640 km west of Kabul.

#4: Earlier on Saturday, two Taliban fighters were killed and one policeman was injured as Taliban launched an attack against police checkpoint in Chardara district of northern Kunduz province, 250 km north of Kabul, the deputy provincial police chief Ebadullah Talwar told Xinhua.