Afghan border violence continues

Largely gone from the headlines and overshadowed by the horrorshow in Iraq, violence continues in Afghanistan, especially in the Taliban-sympathetic zone along that Pakistan border. We recently reported on an especially grisly incident involving U.S. troops. Now comes a similarly grisly report from Pakistan’s Daily Times, April 25:

LAHORE: US and Afghan forces on Sunday threw four bodies into Pakistani territory, claiming the deceased were Pakistani nationals, Geo news channel reported.

However, Pakistani security forces refused to pick the bodies up, saying the deceased were not Pakistanis, it added.

Witnesses also said the hands and feet of the deceased had marks of cigarette burns, handcuffs and shackles, the channel added.

North Waziristan Agency’s political agent and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) officials said they did not know who the victims were, and it would take several hours to confirm the identities of the deceased, the channel said. In a separate incident in Afghanistan, US and Afghan soldiers battled suspected militants near the border with Pakistan, and four fighters and one Afghan soldier were killed, the US military said on Sunday, agencies reported.

An Afghan soldier was killed and another was injured on Sunday in a landmine explosion east of Kandahar, a US military spokesman said. A car bomb also exploded in Kabul, causing no casualties.

Also, an explosion in Kandahar province on Sunday killed a Romanian soldier and wounded two.