Taliban fight intensifies in AfghanistanHmmmmm...we have dozens of people dying in Iraq each day under an unstable regime, in the Palestinian sector, there are terror bombings trying to take out the government there, Guantanamo is turning into a battle royale, Chechnya is still in unrest, and now the Taliban have reared their ugly heads.
BY JAMES RUPERT
Newsday Staff Correspondent
May 19, 2006
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban guerrillas fought Afghan police and U.S. and Canadian troops yesterday in some of southern Afghanistan's fiercest battles since the United States ousted the Islamic militant movement from power in 2001.
An American police trainer and a Canadian officer were among the scores killed since Wednesday in a series of attacks that included a ground assault on a village, suicide car bombings against military vehicles, and firefights with Western troops.
The past two days underscore what appears to be a major Taliban offensive to strengthen the influence of the movement in the south as U.S. forces there hand off combat roles to arriving NATO units. In one of two significant ground battles raging since Wednesday, Capt. Nichola Goddard, 26, was killed in Kandahar province, the first Canadian woman soldier ever to die in a combat role.
That battle was at Panjwai, a village district only 15 miles from Kandahar, the hub of southern Afghanistan's economy and politics. In Helmand province, just west of Kandahar, hundreds of Taliban attacked Afghan police and government offices Wednesday in the town of Musa Qala. Afghan officials said 13 policemen died, while reports of Taliban dead ranged from nine to 50.
Beyond Afghanistan's deep south, a Taliban stronghold, the attacks were by suicide car bombs.
So where's the President? Beating up on Burma, and insisting that immigrants do something he's never mastered, speak English.
Nice. Very nice.
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