AP News, October 8th, 2007
Sixteen militants fighting under a wanted Uzbek warlord with a $200,000 bounty on his head were killed in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, an official said Monday.
U.S. forces early Sunday called in the strikes against fighters of Tahir Yuldash, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and an al-Qaida operational commander, said Nabi Jan Mullahkhail, the provincial police chief of Paktika province.
The U.S. military late last month released a list of 12 Most Wanted militants in Afghanistan, and Yuldash was one of five listed with the top reward of $200,000.
Mullahkhail said one enemy fighter _ an Uzbek _ was captured during the fighting in the Sorobi district of Paktika and said that the militants from Uzbekistan and Chechnya were fighting under Yuldash.
In nearby Paktia province, U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan soldiers detained four suspected militants in Gardez district, the coalition said.
On Sunday, officials said a bombing and a gunbattle killed four police officers and four militants.
Two officers were killed and two others were wounded when a bomb exploded under their car in Yaqoubi district in Khost province on Saturday, police chief Wazir Pacha said.
Also in eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban ambush in Nuristan province left two other officers dead, police officer Mohammad Daud said. Four militants were also killed in the Saturday clash, which occurred in the remote Kamdesh district.
Elsewhere in the east, two Afghan civilians were killed in Kunar province after speeding toward a checkpoint without stopping, NATO said. The checkpoint had been set up because intelligence indicated insurgents planned to launch an attack on a NATO base.
In Paktika province, a "suspicious" man was shot and killed after being asked to halt, NATO said.
Afghanistan is going through its most violent period since the U.S. invasion six years ago. More than 5,100 people _ mostly militants _ have died in insurgency-related violence in 2007, according to an Associated Press count based on information from Afghan and Western officials.
