Afghanistan struck by worst violence since 2001

Afghanistan has been besieged over the past week by some of the deadliest violence since the Taliban was driven from power in late 2001. As many as 300 people have been killed in fighting between an invigorated Taliban insurgency and coalition forces. Most of those killed in a series of clashes were allegedly militants but dozens of Afghan police, soldiers and civilians have also been killed, along with four foreign soldiers. At least 16 civilians were killed in airstrikes by US forces on a village near Kandahar in Afghanistan on May 22. US military spokesmen Col. Tom Collins said a Taliban compound had been targeted but survivors from the village said civilian houses were bombed. "We targeted a Taliban compound and we're certain we hit the right target," said Col. Collins. It was impossible for journalists to confirm exactly what had happened after Afghan police and foreign troops cordoned off the village of Azizi, 30 miles southwest of Kandahar. US forces claimed as many as 80 Taliban fighters may have been killed in the airstrikes, but said they had only verified 20 Taliban deaths. Death tolls are notoriously unreliable in Afghanistan–local officials are known to exaggerate enemy deaths and underplay civilian casualties. Wounded villagers in a Kandahar hospital said the Taliban had been sheltering in the village's madrassa or religious school. "There were dead people everywhere," said Zurmina Bibi, cradling her eight-month-old baby. She said 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children. Mohammed Rafiq, a 23-year-old farmer, said the bombs had caused enormous destruction. "I don't have anything left," he said. Another farmer, Azizullah, 30, said three members of his family had been killed. "I was at home when the Taliban came to our village last night," he said. "After some time, US planes came and bombed the Taliban, and they bombed us, too." Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed "concern at the coalition forces' decision to bomb civilian areas" during the attack on Azizi and called for an investigation into the matter. Karzai said he would summon the US commander for a full explanation of the civilian casualties. His forceful comments reflect disquiet at heavy-handed coalition tactics against a wave of Taliban attacks. The latest upsurge in violence started on May 27 in the small remote town of Musa Qala in the province of Helmand, when an estimated 300-400 militants with assault rifles and machine guns attacked police and government headquarters. The attack sparked eight hours of clashes with Afghan security forces, the fiercest in Helmand since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, said Deputy Gov. Amir Mohammed Akhunzaba. He said the bodies of about 40 Taliban militants were recovered and that 13 police were killed and six wounded in the fighting, some 280 miles southwest of Kabul. Afghan police reinforcements forced the militants to flee. British soldiers helped evacuate casualties but did not provide military backup, in part so Afghan forces could prove themselves, according to British military spokesman Capt. Drew Gibson. Akhundzada said: "It was the biggest attack in this area since the fall of the Taliban. They must have been planning this for some time." In neighboring Kandahar province, Canadian soldiers were supporting Afghan forces on a mission to oust Taliban fighters outside Kandahar city when militants attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. A Canadian soldier was killed during the attacks. A suicide bombing was carried out in Herat on May 18, a city near the Iranian border not under Taliban control and until now spared by much of this year's violence. The bomb killed a US contractor who was working on a project to train Afghan police. US Embassy spokesman Chris Harris said two other contractors were wounded. The blast incinerated the vehicle, which was flipped on its side. Heavily armed foreign security guards protected the scene, where a severed limb lay in the road. Later at the site of the bombing, US investigators and military personnel, fearing another suicide attack, shot and killed an Afghan driver who ran a checkpoint, the embassy said. A second suicide car bomber attacked near the gates of an Afghan army base in Ghazni province, 70 miles south of Kabul, said Sher Alam, an Afghan government spokesman. The blast killed a civilian on a motorbike and wounded a pedestrian. Also in Ghazni, militants ambushed two police patrols, killing two officers and wounding five, Alam said. Fighting also erupted between the insurgents and US forces on May 20 in the Uruzgan province, where a US soldier was killed and six others wounded, the US military said. On the same day Taliban rebels ambushed two Afghan army convoys in the country's south, setting off gunbattles that killed 10 militants, an Afghan soldier and a civilian, the Afghan military said. The first attack against the Afghan army convoys occurred in the Helmand province, killing six rebels, the soldier and the civilian, said Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, the head of the Afghan military's southern region. Three other Afghan troops were wounded. Fighting still raged in Helmand on May 21, causing an unknown number of casualties on both sides, the general said. Another ambush occurred in Zabul province and four Taliban rebels were killed as Afghan troops returned fire, Raufi said. In the western city of Herat, an explosion ripped through a vehicle carrying former warlord Amanullah Khan, wounding him, said the city's deputy police chief. Two French soldiers died while fighting the Taliban in Kandahar province, the French Defense Ministry said on May 21. It gave no further details. France has had 200 special forces officers in southeastern Afghanistan since 2003 as part of the US-led coalition. US and Afghan government forces killed 24 insurgents in a battle in Uruzgan province on May 23. An Afghan policemen and four Afghan soldiers were also killed, the US military said. In a separate incident, gunmen ambushed a car in the central province of Ghor, killing a judge, a provincial official and two guards, said the province's deputy governor, Ikramuddin Rezaye. He said he did not know who was responsible. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said by telephone the Taliban carried out the attack. In other violence, Mohammed Ali Jalali, the former governor of eastern Paktika province, was found dead after being kidnapped two days earlier, local police chief Abdul Rehman Surjung said. Jalali was a respected tribal elder and a supporter of President Karzai. The Taliban resurgence, despite the presence of more than 30,000 foreign troops, including 23,000 from the United States, has halted postwar reconstruction work in many areas and has raised fears for Afghanistan's future. In recent months, the pace and scope of insurgent attacks have been increasing steadily, and now include suicide bombings, a tactic long foreign to Afghanistan. The violence has surged as NATO forces prepare to assume the lead military role in Afghanistan from US troops this summer, a transition that some observers believe the Taliban and other insurgent groups are seeking to test. At least 235 members of the US military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, according to the US Defense Department.