Man in Afghan army uniform kills two Nato troops: ISAF

KABUL: A man wearing an Afghan army uniform on Thursday shot dead two members of Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force, military officials said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack which they said targeted French troops in Kapisa province, which is east of the capital Kabul.

“An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against two International Security Assistance Forces service members in eastern Afghanistan, today, killing both service members,” a coalition statement said.

ISAF said it was investigating but did not identify the nationality of the victims in line with policy.

“This morning one Afghan soldier named Ebrahim killed three French soldiers. He was also martyred,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The Taliban frequently exaggerate their claims.

He said the incident took place in Tagab district in Kapisa province, which is part of the volatile east of the country.

There have been several incidents over the past year in which Afghan government security forces – or those purporting to be – have turned their weapons on foreign troops.

On Christmas eve an Afghan soldier was killed after opening fire on US troops in southwestern Farah province.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Taliban attack kills 10 Afghan police

KANDAHAR: A Taliban bomb attack killed 10 Afghan police returning from a recruitment centre in southern Afghanistan’s restive Helmand province on Thursday, the local government said.

The victims were members of the US-funded Afghan Local Police (ALP) set up last year and touted as key to a handover of security control, which will see all foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan in theory by the end of 2014.

“Ten local police were killed and one was injured after their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province,” provincial governor’s spokesman Daud Ahmadi said.

“The police were on their way back from a recruitment centre.” Three of the ALP officers were newly recruited, he added.

The Taliban, who frequently use roadside bombs to attack Afghan and US-led Nato troops, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“Our mujahedeen fighters attacked a police vehicle and as a result 10 police were killed including a police commander,” said spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi.

Parts of Helmand remain highly unstable, although Nad-e Ali was one of the districts where President Hamid Karzai said security would be handed from Nato to Afghan control in a second wave of transition.

Mohammad Marjan, police chief of Nad-e Ali, confirmed the attack.

“On the way back from training, their vehicle struck a roadside bomb. As a result 10 police were killed and one was wounded,” he said.

British forces have been operating in the district since 2006 and recently said the joint security effort had led to an 86 per cent drop in violence this year compared to 2010.

The ALP arms local people to protect their communities in areas where the Afghan army and regular police have limited reach.

It does not have law enforcement powers and is due to more-than triple in size to 30,000.

Critics have called it little more than a militia but Nato says the community force helps bolster security in rural areas.

There are around 130,000 international troops, mainly from the United States, in Afghanistan helping government forces combat the insurgency.

Helmand’s provincial capital Lashkar Gah has already been handed from Nato to Afghan control.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Turkish air strikes kill 23 Kurds near Iraq: official

DIYARBAKIR: Turkish air strikes killed 23 Kurdish villagers in the southeast near the Iraqi border early Thursday, an official of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said.

Provincial officials found 23 bodies at Ortasu village in Sirnak province, councillor Ertan Eris told pro-Kurdish Roj TV from the bombing site. Nineteen of those killed had so far been identified.

Eris said the dead were among a group of 35 to 40 people, their ages ranging from 16 to 20, who had crossed the border to smuggle goods.

Local security sources said the group was smuggling gas and sugar into Turkey from northern Iraq and may have been mistaken for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels.

The PKK, which took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives, is labelled a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community.

Eris said the death toll was likely to rise further, with snow and rough terrain complicating the search for bodies. He had at first put the death toll at 11.

Local security officials confirmed the bombing but declined to give the number of casualties.

The pro-Kurdish Firat news agency said 35 villagers, including children, were killed in the strikes.

Clashes between Kurdish rebels and the army have escalated in recent months.

The Turkish military launched an operation in northern Iraq in October after a PKK attack killed 24 soldiers in the town of Cukurca near the Iraqi border, the army’s biggest loss since 1993.

PKK rebels usually launch attacks on Turkish targets from their rear bases in northern Iraq.

The army then killed 36 Kurdish rebels in Kazan Valley of Hakkari province, near the Iraqi border.

Media reports in Turkey and abroad, as well as the BDP, have accused Turkey of using chemical weapons against the rebels but the army has denied the allegations.

Iraqi officials and the BDP have also claimed Turkish military air strikes in August killed a family of seven in northern Iraq during an operation to bomb PKK hideouts.

Turkey denied the charges and summoned Iraq’s ambassador to the foreign ministry to convey its concerns over the claims. An anonymous Turkish diplomat called the allegations a “PKK game”.

In November Turkey bombed the Sulaimaniyah and Arbil provinces of Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region, wounding one civilian, Kurdish official said.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL