Police deaths on rise
Police deaths in Afghanistan have doubled this year after withdrawing NATO forces handed security of the war-ravaged country to poorly equipped local troops with less frontline experience fighting Taliban insurgents. Almost twelve years after coalition forces invaded Afghanistan, swathes of territory are firmly under Taliban control and Afghan troops are still heavily reliant on foreign air support, particularly in remote areas. Their lighter vehicles make them particularly vulnerable to roadside bombs. The Afghan government, anxious not to damage morale, has been reluctant to publish regular casualty numbers. It no longer publishes death tolls for the army. However, in a speech on Monday the new Interior Minister Umer Daudzai revealed that 1,792 police have been killed since March, most of them by roadside bombs. The same number died in the preceding 12 months. It is one of the highest police death rates in the world and raises further questions over how the government will be able to keep the Taliban at bay once foreign troops have withdrawn fully from Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
Reuters
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Villa Rica soldier, 28, killed
A soldier from Villa Rica who was based in Colorado has died of combat injuries in Afghanistan, military officials said. The U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement Sunday that 28-year-old Staff Sgt. Joshua J. Bowden died Aug. 31. Bowden, who was from the west Georgia town, died of injuries after enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire while on dismounted patrol in Ghazni, Afghanistan, authorities said. He was assigned to the 242nd Ordnance Battalion (EOD), 71st Ordnance Group (EOD), at Fort Carson, Colo. Bowden joined the Army in late 2005 and was on his second deployment. He previously deployed to Afghanistan from 2008-2009. Friends remembered him as a talented athlete. Bowden’s former karate instructor, Samantha Hostettler, recalled Bowden as a smart student who earned his black belt at a young age who was protective of his sister. “You know boys - sometimes they’re not openly loving with their family,” Hostettler, owner of Champion Karate and Fitness in Douglasville, Ga., told The Gazette of Colorado Springs. “But he just loved his sister. He took care of her.”
Associated Press
Militants attacked a U.S. base in Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan on Monday, setting off bombs, torching vehicles and shutting down a key road used by NATO supply trucks, officials said. At least three people — apparently all attacking insurgents — were killed.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the strike in the Torkham area, the latest in a surge of attacks in Afghanistan as U.S.-led foreign troops reduce their presence en route to a full withdrawal by the end of next year. Militants frequently target NATO’s supply lines in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Attacks on Afghan security forces and civilians have also mounted this week killing dozens and adding to fears the drawdown of foreign troops, most of whom are due to leave the country by the end of next year, is allowing insurgents to regain lost territory.
In a brief statement, NATO confirmed an “unsuccessful coordinated attack by enemy forces” but said none of its personnel were killed. The military alliance generally does not release information on wounded troops. No members of the Afghan security forces or civilians were killed or wounded, according to Esa Khan Zwak, chief administrator in Mohmandara district, in which the base is located.
Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said several militants wearing suicide vests and carrying other weapons staged the attack, and that Afghan and U.S. forces exchanged gunfire with the insurgents. NATO helicopters joined the fight, he added.
The encounter began around 6:30 a.m. and lasted three-and-a-half hours, said Masoum Khan Hashimi, deputy provincial police chief in Nangarhar province. Afghan security forces trying to clear the area were still in the process of defusing a bomb in a car. At least one car bomb also was successfully detonated in the attack, Hashimi said.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene saw three bodies of suspected attackers — apparently shot dead from the NATO helicopters. The suspected insurgents didn’t manage to enter the main base area, but had tried to hide under a small canal bridge near it when they were hit.
The highway between Jalalabad city and Torkham, an important route for NATO supply trucks, was closed, Abdulzai said. Militants on both sides of the Afghan border have frequently targeted the supply line, leading NATO to shift much of its supply delivery toward routes from Central Asian states instead of through Pakistan.
Afghan officials say a parking lot at the outpost was a stopping point for many types of vehicles used by U.S. and other NATO forces. Hashimi said four U.S. vehicles there were completely burned.
In an emailed statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the insurgent group was behind Monday morning’s attack, and claimed it had destroyed several tanks — an assertion Hashimi denied.
The United States has been putting pressure on Afghanistan to finalize a bilateral security agreement (BSA), which will mandate how many, and where, U.S. soldiers will remain once the NATO mission ends.
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