Fresh Afghan unrest claims 22 lives

Clashes, attacks surge in July, 223 foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year





KABUL: A wave of Taliban-linked violence across Afghanistan over the weekend has killed 22 people including insurgents, a foreign soldier and two Afghan troops, authorities said on Sunday.




Clashes and attacks have surged this month, with NATO-led offensives in the south leading to record foreign military casualties and the Taliban insurgency at its fiercest since the 2001 US-led invasion toppled their government.




In the Bargi Matal district of Nuristan, a mountainous province near Pakistan, Afghan forces backed by foreign troops pounded Taliban positions with artillery, killing 16 militants on Saturday, the defence ministry said. "The enemy launched several rockets on a military outpost. The troops responded and killed 16 enemy fighters," it said. One foreign soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has also been reported killed in southern Afghanistan, a hotbed of Taliban unrest and the target of recent military offensives.




An ISAF statement said the soldier "died of wounds suffered in a hostile incident" on Saturday but did not reveal the nationality of the trooper. Also in the south, three local security guards were killed when a mine exploded in Helmand province, an attack the Ministry of Interior blamed on "enemies of peace and stability" - a reference to the insurgents.




The defence ministry, meanwhile, said two Afghan soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a mine planted by the Taliban in eastern Paktika province, another insurgency-hit region on the Pakistan border. Four Italian soldiers were also wounded on Saturday in a roadside bomb blast in the western province of Herat, local officials said.




The independent www.icasualties.org website, which tracks military losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, says 223 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, not including the latest death. The website reports 67 killed in July alone. afp