Afghan troops kill 15 suspected Taliban
Afghan security forces attacked a group of suspected Taliban rebels after they crossed the border from neighbouring Pakistan and killed at least 15 of them, an army commander said today.
Another four insurgents fled back across the frontier after the two-hour gun battle late yesterday near the border town of Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, said Abdul Razak, frontier security commander.
Included among the dead was a mid-level Taliban commander, Mullah Shien, who for months has allegedly led several cross-border raids from secret bases on the Pakistani side of the frontier, Razak said.
His followers would regularly attack foreign and Afghan troops and bomb trucks hauling fuel for the US-led coalition, he said.
“We got a tip-off about them coming across the border. We went down there and fought them,” the commander said.
“We now have all the dead bodies.”
The fighting was the deadliest in weeks in Afghanistan and may stoke a dispute between Kabul and Islamabad about militants sneaking across the two countries’ frontier, most of which is unmarked and unguarded.
