Stemming militancy: Four militants killed in coalition airstrikes

Jets pound militant positions in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.

ISLAMABAD:

Afghan and coalition forces on Wednesday used fighter jets to pound insurgent positions in a mountainous region close to the Pakistani border, killing at least four militants just two days after the Taliban launched their ‘spring offensive’, officials said.

Officials in the Khyber Agency earlier said a US drone launched missiles at militant positions in the region, killing two of them.

Afghan officials, however, said that Afghan and coalition forces carried out joint operations in the Nazyan district of Nangarhar province and killed four ‘opponents of the government’ – a reference to the Taliban.

Ahmadzai Abdul Zai, a spokesman for the Nangarhar province, confirmed the attack in a media interaction in Jalalabad, the provincial capital. Other officials said the coalition aircraft targeted Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), the Afghan Taliban and smugglers who were using the route to move their goods.

There was no word on the attack from either the Lashkar or the Taliban till the filing of this report.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan spokesman Haroon Zarghoon, who’s familiar with the area, said the areas targeted in the air strikes were just two or three kilometres from the Pakistani border.

According to him, three strikes were carried out, two of which targeted the Afghan Taliban and smugglers in Nazyan district’s Nakhtar Nau area. Several Taliban were injured in the attack, he said.

The third strike targeted LI militants in Nazyan’s Spina Zai area.

LI has recently been involved in clashes with the Afghan Taliban and locals for control of the region. According to some sources, LI fighters have already expelled the Taliban from some areas.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2014.