as a U.S. troop buildup gets under way in earnest, five Western troops
died Monday in or after clashes in the south and east. At least three
of the dead were Americans.
It was the worst daily toll in months for the
Western coalition, which had originally given a total of six troop
deaths. Foreign troops will increase this year by 30,000 American
troops and an additional 7,000 from
Military officials said three Americans were killed
in a clash with insurgents and a fourth foreign service member, whose
nationality was not immediately disclosed, died in a roadside bombing.
The other fatality, identified by the French government as one of its soldiers, occurred in
tribal areas. The Western military initially reported that a second
service member had died of wounds, but Tuesday retracted that report.
The
Assistance Force also disclosed the death Sunday of an American service
member wounded in an attack a day earlier in the south. That followed
the deaths on Saturday of a U.S. Marine and a British journalist in a
powerful roadside bomb explosion in Helmand province.
Helmand, together with neighboring
province, is considered the heartland of the insurgency. American,
British, Canadian and other allied forces have been taking significant
casualties in recent months in that swath of the south.
Fighting in
often drops off with the onset of winter weather as heavy snow
accumulates in the mountain passes, hampering insurgents’ ability to
move fighters and weapons. But the winter has been unusually mild this
year, and clashes have continued accordingly.
Most Western military casualties are caused by
insurgent-planted roadside bombs, but firefights also break out
regularly between foreign forces and Taliban militants. The insurgents
often stage ambushes in the wake of an explosion severe enough to drive
foreign troops out of their armored vehicles, or strike as soldiers are
patrolling on foot.
Enormous numbers of buried bombs — so heavy a
concentration that commanders describe the devices as a “crust” in some
areas — endanger Afghan civilians as well as foreign troops.
on Monday said two Afghan road workers were killed the day before in
Helmand’s Nawa district when their vehicle struck an improvised
explosive device close to the area where the Marine and the British
journalist had died on Saturday.
The U.S.-led buildup has been forcing the military
to scramble to get troops and supplies into place. On Monday a
helicopter made a hard landing — in effect a controlled crash — in
Helmand province. Its crew was uninjured, but the chopper was disabled,
military officials said.
commanders have said. The Marines, who arrived in force over the
summer, are expected soon to push into the town of Marja, where many
insurgents have taken shelter from fighting elsewhere in the area. The
town, ringed by canals and agricultural fields, is a major hub for
narcotics trafficking, and Taliban fighters have long had free rein in
the area.
Meanwhile, Afghan and U.S. officials said Monday
that they were moving ahead with plans to hand over the American-run
prison at Bagram air base outside
A new prison facility has since been opened at the
base, and about 750 prisoners, mostly Afghans, are still being held.
Some are expected to be shifted into the Afghan prison system.
The date for the handover has not yet been set, but a spokesman for the
The commander of American detainee operations in
said at the same news conference that under new rules, suspected
insurgents could still be held by the military at field detention
sites, but only for “a very short period of time.”
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
Visit the
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
