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KABUL (AFP) - Six foreign troops including a Polish national were slain in bombings in Afghanistan on Saturday, the forces said, making it the deadliest day for international soldiers in the war-torn nation this year. Meanwhile, the Afghan army said five Afghan troopers and dozens of militants were killed in operations across the country in the last 24 hours. Four of the foreign troops serving in the US-led coalition were killed when insurgents attacked them with an improvised bomb and small arms fire just outside the strategic southern city of Kandahar on Saturday, the force said. "Four coalition service members...

MONARAI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO and Afghan forces held mopping up operations, hunting Taliban fighters and burying the dead on Friday, after an air and ground offensive routed hundreds of insurgents from a valley near Kandahar city. The allies mounted the offensive on Wednesday after the Taliban took control of the Arghandab valley, 20 km (12 miles) northwest of Kandahar. Around 600 militants, including some who had escaped a week ago during a mass jail break from a prison in the city, had taken up positions in a cluster of villages, according to a provincial official and a Taliban spokesman....

ARGHANDAB DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- Hundreds of Taliban fighters have been killed or wounded after two days of fierce fighting over a strategic area just northwest of Kandahar City that insurgents had taken over at the start of the week. By Thursday, all that remained was the mopping up of small scattered pockets of resistance, jubilant political leaders and Afghan and Canadian military commanders told reporters from a mountainside perch overlooking the entire battlefield in a wide river valley. "This will give them a good lesson," Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said, referring to Taliban insurgents. Mr. Khalid said residents who had...

Excerpt - Afghan officials say military operations have cleared Taliban militants from the villages they had infiltrated outside southern Afghanistan's largest city. Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said on Thursday that Taliban fighters had fled the villages in Arghandab district after overnight battles and air strikes. Khalid reported "hundreds" of Taliban wounded or killed over the last several days, but Nato officials have not confirmed that claim. ~ snip ~

Reports that suggest the Taliban have gained a footing in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province are “way overblown,” a Pentagon spokesman said today. Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters at a news conference that although an increased Taliban presence has been detected in the province, patrols conducted by Afghan National Police and coalition forces “found no evidence that militants control the area.” Press reports from the region said the Taliban had taken seven villages in the area and were poised for an attack on the city of Kandahar. “While in the area, coalition forces moved freely and met no resistance,” Morrell said....

Jail Blast Frees Hundreds Of Taliban Updated:22:34, Friday June 13, 2008 Hundreds of Taliban militants have escaped from a prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after a co-ordinated suicide bomb and rocket attack tore through the jail's defences. Nearly all of an estimated 1,150 prisoners fled when a Taliban suicide bomber blew open the main gate, officials said. Eyewitnesses reported that the fighters fired several rockets at various parts of the mud-built prison. "All the prisoners escaped. There is no one left," said Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai and the president of Kandahar's provincial council. Militants first exploded a...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents blew open the gate of a main prison in the Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday, allowing hundreds of prisoners including suspected militants to escape, officials said. Under cover of darkness, nearly all of an estimated 1,150 prisoners, including some 400 Taliban inmates, fled from the jail, two officials in the southern city of Kandahar told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Another official said between 750 and 800 prisoners had managed to escape, adding some prisoners were killed in a gun battle between police and Taliban fighters inside the jail. "I think scores of...

Like pensions and insurance, defence is one of those subjects to which too many people only pay attention when things go wrong. You might think, in the light of the past decade, that this would have changed. But you would be sadly mistaken. Even today, even after Iraq, few mainstream MPs without an immediate personal or constituency interest in the subject turn up in the Commons for defence debates. Many politicians who are thoughtful about a range of domestic issues still pass by on the other side when the conversation gravitates to the military. In this they reflect the British...

KABUL - Kandahar, where Canadian forces are responsible for security, is no longer the most hazardous place in Afghanistan, according to a senior Afghan general. "It is now Helmand that is the most dangerous, not Kandahar," said General Zahir Azimi in an interview over lunch this week in the Afghan capital. "This is because Canadian troops have done a great job in their area. They have changed Kandahar from being the most volatile place to the second most volatile place." The general, dressed in a sharp business suit rather than the green battle fatigues favoured by most Afghan commanders, said...

Canada to get help in Kandahar: U.S. commander Marines will help troops, search still on for more NATO troopsKABUL, Afghanistan -- Canada will get the additional NATO combat forces in Kandahar that Parliament is expected to demand if it approves a motion Thursday to extend the mission there to 2011, according to the White House and the U.S. commander of all 50,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan. Gen. Dan McNeill also told Canwest News Service in an exclusive interview Wednesday that U.S. Marines being deployed to southern Afghanistan in April for seven months, would help the Canadian battle group, fighting the...

Canadian soldier found dead at Kandahar base Updated Tue. Mar. 11 2008 11:05 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff Military officials are investigating the death of a 22-year-old soldier, whose body was found Tuesday in an accommodation room in Kandahar Air Field. The soldier has been identified as Bombardier Jeremie Ouellet, of the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, based in Shilo, Man. Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche told reporters that the soldier was found at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday and that his death "is not related to combat." But he could not specify how Ouellet died. "The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service has...

Excerpt - KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb 25 (Reuters) - A strong explosion shook Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar on Monday, but it was not immediately clear what caused it and if there were any casualties, residents and the interior ministry said. The blast occurred to the west of the city of Kandahar, where more than 100 people, most of them civilians, were killed in a suspected suicide attack last week. ~ snip ~

via translation - KANDAHAR (Afghanistan) - Dozens of people were killed and dozens injured in an attack Sunday morning in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, said the spokesman of the Interior Ministry, Zemaraï Bashary . "The number of victims is very high. Dozens of people were killed and dozens were injured in the attack, said the spokesman. "It was a bomb attack, but at this stage we do not know if it was a suicide attack or other," he added.

They had big black beards, big warm smiles. They had a dozen young Afghan army trainees in tow, each with a grin to match. They didn't even have flak jackets, let alone a speck of armour on the two brown pickup trucks that kept their show on the road. They were French special forces, in an especially dodgy part of Afghanistan, where the French supposedly don't go. And they'd been there a while. It was late February 2006 – nearly two years ago now – but this close encounter came vividly to mind yesterday when talk of a possible French...

Friday December 7, 8:04 PM Taliban surrender Kandahar; Mullah Omar whereabouts a mystery The final curtain has been drawn on the Taliban regime as it began laying down arms in its last bastion of Kandahar amid conflicting reports on the whereabouts of its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency quoted a local official Friday as saying that the surrender of the city was complete and power was handed over to a tribal council, but that Mullah Omar had vanished. The spokesman in Islamabad of the US-led anti-terror coalition, meanwhile, said Omar was close to ...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has abandoned his last Afghan stronghold of Kandahar and is no longer in the city, an Afghan news agency said on Friday. "After agreement with tribal leaders and commanders, Taliban leader Mullah Omar has disappeared from Kandahar and it is not known where he has gone," Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted Haji Bashar, a former Mujahideen commander, as saying. "Mullah Omar is not in Kandahar and the national shura (council) does not know where he is. He has gone to some undisclosed place," Haji Bashar told AIP by satellite phone from ...

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD — In just under an hour, they have enough blood—and it is still warm. It’s a walking blood bank at the Canadian-led Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit (MMU). And while it doesn’t happen often, it does happen. They put out the call and quickly have a line of pre-screened donors snaking out the door. After another screening process to ensure their blood still meets all the requirements, their blood is drawn. Even after a few days, donors are still trickling in. Health Care Administrator Captain Lisa Baspaly says the hospital provides the best in medical care to all...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Days of fierce fighting with NATO and Afghan forces left Taliban militants in control of one southern Afghan district and battling to take over another Tuesday, officials said. Taliban fighters seized Miya Nishin district in Kandahar province late Monday, provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai said. Authorities were planning to retake the remote area. In neighboring Uruzgan province's Chora district — home to more than 100,000 people — fighting continued between NATO and Afghan forces and militants who attacked police posts in the province's main town on Saturday. Some officials reported dozens of civilian casualties. "It has been...

Excerpt - KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants overran a district in southern Afghanistan and are pushing for control of another key area, sparking fierce clashes with NATO and Afghan forces that have left more than 100 people dead over three days, officials said Tuesday. Hundreds of Taliban fighters launched raids on police posts near the strategic town of Chora in Uruzgan province Saturday, forcing NATO, backed by fighter jets, to respond. Fighting was continuing Tuesday, and some officials reported there have been dozens of civilian casualties. Also late Monday, Taliban occupied Miya Nishin district in neighboring Kandahar province, said provincial...

BREAKING: Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan~ CTV.ca News Staff, Updated Fri. May. 25 2007 9:32 AM ET Canadians lead major assault on the Taliban 'Hammer and anvil' operation designed to push fighters into an area controlled by coalition forces By Murray Campbell Toronto Globe and Mail Friday, May 25, 2007 MA'SUM GHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Canadian troops today launched their most ambitious assault on the Taliban in nearly two months. Shortly after dawn, a multinational force including Canadians, Afghans, Portuguese and British, began an operation designed to flush out Taliban believed to be in the area near the Arghandab River. Illuminating...