WASHINGTON, Jan 24: US special forces on Wednesday night raided two compounds in Afghanistan believed to hold Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, killing at least 15 people and capturing 27 others. A US commando was lightly wounded in the ankle.
US Air Force General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the raid was launched on Wednesday in the mountains north of Kandahar, triggering an intense firefight.
“This would never be described as a walk in the park,” said Myers.
Myers said most of those found inside were Afghan fighters despite initial reports that the compound was used by Al Qaeda.
“Once the compound was raided, we found it was mostly of a Taliban nature,” he said.
The general would not say whether the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was believed to be in the area.
“We still have eyes on the targets there and there is a potential for further action,” he said.
The raids — in an area about 100 kilometres north of Kandahar — comprised one of the largest known ground operations of the US military campaign in Afghanistan.
“They were not a surprise. They were planned,” said US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a Pentagon news conference with Myers.
A US defence official said at least 12 fighters were killed in the raid.
Another 27 were captured and taken to Kandahar for questioning, said Navy Commander Dan Keesee, a spokesman for the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida.
Keesee said a large cache of weapons and ammunition were discovered and destroyed by an AC-130 gunship.
A US special forces soldier was wounded in the ankle by enemy fire, defence officials said, but the injury was described as not life-threatening.
Keesee said the soldier, who was not immediately identified, was being treated at a medical facility in the Afghanistan theatre of operations.
“He’s in stable condition. His injuries are not life threatening,” he said.
Rumsfeld said US forces were searching for remaining pockets of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, which he said were “in some cases not small pockets but somewhat larger than small”.
“They are able to move around the country in some narrow confined areas in the mountains. We are finding them from time to time, and when we are finding them we are engaging them in direct action either alone or with coalition forces or with Afghan forces,” he said.
ANNAN VISIT: UN officials sounded the alarm on Thursday over security conditions in Afghanistan as Secretary General Kofi Annan prepared for the first visit here by a UN chief in more than 40 years.
The magnitude of unfinished business in Afghanistan was becoming clear a month after the installation of a six-month interim administration in Kabul.
A senior UN official, speaking on the eve of Annan’s Friday visit, acknowledged concern over factional feuding and lawlessness in a country where hundreds of thousands of people still have weapons.
“There are various armed groups who do not respond yet to central command,” said Francesc Vendrell, deputy special envoy to Afghanistan. “There are forces from various commanders facing each other in places such as the north.—Agencies
