November 16, 2008	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 17, 1429

KABUL, Nov 15: Afghan and coalition forces captured a militant leader in eastern Afghanistan, while 10 guerillas were killed in a separate clash, the US military said on Saturday.

US forces said the captured man was a “key insurgent leader” responsible for the deaths of Afghan troops, bomb attacks on coalition forces and the kidnapping of aid workers.

He was seized on Friday in a joint raid with Afghan police in a village in eastern Ghazni province, the military said in a statement. No shots were fired in the raid, it said.

A spokesman declined to give further details about the man’s identity.

Coalition forces also killed 10 militants in a strike against a bomb-making cell in the eastern Paktia province on Friday, the US military said in a separate statement.

The troops were targeting several key figures in a network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the military said.

The coalition forces were attacked during the strike and returned fire, killing the assailants, it said.

The US military said those killed were Haqqani’s men and foreign fighters known to have planned and conducted bomb attacks on civilians and coalition forces, and to coordinate suicide bombings.

The military has not yet determined whether any of the targeted leaders were among those killed, said US army spokeswoman Master Sgt Melissa Rolan.

The United States once considered Jalaluddin Haqqani a freedom fighter against the former Soviet Union, but he and his son Sirajuddin are now seen as closely associated with the Taliban.

Afghan police said two intelligence agents and one police officer were killed late on Friday in a bomb attack on their vehicle south of Kabul. They were hit while responding to an earlier bomb attack that injured three police officers, regional police commander Gen Zalmai Oryakhail said.

‘Accidental killing’

On Saturday, a civilian was killed during a clash with militants in Zabul province, a US military statement said. It said the civilian was killed accidentally when a grenade fired by coalition forces overshot its target.

“We regret the loss of an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire and our condolences go to his family,” said Col Gregory Julian, a US forces spokesman.

Also on Saturday, police thwarted a suicide attack in the eastern city of Khost, officials said. Officers surrounded a suspect, who was on foot, and the man detonated the explosives on his body. The would-be attacker died, but no one else was injured, said health department director Gull Mohammedan Mohammadi. Suicide attacks have been one of the Taliban’s preferred tactics in their assaults against foreign and Afghan troops.—AP