41 Taliban killed, 13 captured in battle, Kandahar governor says
Last Updated Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:43:33 EDT
CBC News
Forty-one Taliban fighters were killed and 13 captured in a battle with Afghan forces that drew about 100 Canadian troops as reinforcements, the governor of Kandahar province said on Saturday.
* INDEPTH: Canadian Casualties
Relatives of three Afghan police officers killed by suspected Taliban fighters wait around the bodies of their relatives at Kandahar's main hospital on Saturday. (Rahim Faiez/Associated Press)
The battle took place Friday near the town of Singisar in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban movement was founded in the early 1990s, Assadullah Khalid told Agence Presse International. Singisar is also the birthplace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a Taliban spokesman, put the Taliban deaths at only three and said there were "high casualties among Afghan and foreign forces."
* FROM APRIL 14, 2006: Canadian vehicle hit in Taliban grenade attack
Six Afghan policemen and a teenage boy were also killed, but there were no reported casualties among the U.S.-led forces in the battle in the Zare Dasht district.
A large band of Taliban fighters, which had been driven out of neighbouring Helmand province by U.S. troops last week, was discovered near the town on Friday by members of the Afghan National Police, Khalid said.
The police called in reinforcements from the Afghan National Army. When that wasn't enough, the call went out for Canadian troops and artillery.
They arrived about three hours after the battle started and cordoned off the area to prevent the Taliban from escaping, said Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, a senior Canadian officer.
According to Canadian military officials in Kandahar, the sudden appearance of the Canadians, along with coalition helicopters, intimidated the Taliban fighters, who began to retreat into the compounds.
U.S. helicopter gunships raked the compounds with rocket fire before Afghan police stormed in, wearing no body armour and carrying only assault rifles, he said.
A Canadian light armoured vehicle fired at Taliban forces after it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The attack left the vehicle with a blown tire that was repaired at the scene of the attack.
"They [Afghan forces] are very, very brave. I applaud their determination not to put up with continued attacks by the Taliban," Hope told reporters.
He said Canadian soldiers were on the hunt for insurgents in villages southwest of Kandahar on Saturday, searching for Taliban fighters who managed to escape the gun battle.