Afghan forces reportedly captured two key Taliban leaders as they were driving in Farah province June 4. The two, Mullah Abdul Rahim – a deputy for a key Taliban commander said to be close to the militia’s fugitive leader, Mullah Omar – and regional Taliban commander Haji Sultan, were immediately handed over to US authorities. Other Taliban fighters were reported killed or captured in fighting in Zabul province that day. (Pakistan Daily Times, June 6) But violence appears undiminished.
A day earlier, an Afghan election worker was killed in Uruzgan. The 19-year-old was working on a project educating villagers in the Trin Kot district on how to cast their vote. Ten attackers, thought to be Taliban, opened fire on him and his father as they were leaving the village mosque. He died instantly, and his father was injured. The election worker is reported to have been warned a few days earlier about a possible attack and local elders had advised women working on the education project that they would not be safe. AKI, June 7
Also June 5, a bomb exploded next to a US military convoy in in Urgun district of Paktika province, killing two soldiers and wounding a third. The deaths brought to 147 the number of US soldiers killed in and around Afghanistan since the US invaded the country in what was called Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001.
(Al-Jazeera, June 4)
See our last post on the ongoing violence in Afghanistan.
