7 Taleban Killed in Shootout With Police
Saturday, 28, January, 2006 - (28, Dhul Hijjah, 1426)
Agencies
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 28 January 2006 — Dozens of Taleban rebels attacked the office of a district police chief in southern Afghanistan before dawn yesterday, triggering a shootout that left seven assailants dead and five Afghan police officers wounded, police said. The battle happened in Registan district, about 150 kilometers south of the city of Kandahar, said Haji Sher Agha, the district police chief.
He said the surviving rebels, armed with assault rifles and other weapons, fled afterward with an unknown number of their wounded. Afghan security forces were looking for them. “We killed seven Taleban and we have their bodies,” he said. Hours later, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying Afghan police officers in neighboring Helmand province, killing two of them and injuring two others.
Meanwhile, Afghans are among the most optimistic people in the world when it comes to their economic future, a BBC survey has found, but such confidence is not always easy to find on the streets of the capital, Kabul. The survey found 70 percent of those questioned in Afghanistan thought their own circumstances were improving, and 57 percent believed their country overall was on the way up.
The survey by the Globescan polling firm also found optimism in Iraq, where 65 percent of people believed their personal lives were getting better, and 56 percent were upbeat about their country’s economy. The firm surveyed 37,572 people in 32 countries between October 2005 and January 2006, said the BBC, which released the results this week. On the cold streets of an overcast Kabul on Friday opinion seemed divided about how people were faring more than four years after US-led forces forced the hard-line Taleban from power.
“It’s not getting better for ordinary people, only for a few businessmen and investors. Ordinary people are getting poorer and poorer,” said laborer Syed Kamal. “Jobs are so few some people are willing to work just for bread,” he said. Prices have been rising fast in Kabul and many people say they are frustrated with what they see as a slow pace of improvement in their lives. “Government figures show that billions of dollars of aid have been disbursed, but given the little change in the lives of many people, there hasn’t been much improvement economically,” said Kabul University student Izatullah, 25.