22/10/2008 13:31 KABUL, October 22 (RIA Novosti) – NATO warplanes mistakenly bombed an Afghan National Army checkpoint on Wednesday, killing nine soldiers and wounding three, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman said that the incident involving aircraft from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) occurred at 2:00 a.m. local time (21:30 GMT Monday) in the eastern Afghan province of Khost and that a joint investigation was underway.
ISAF has about 53,000 troops in Afghanistan under a UN mandate to provide security support to the government and stop the flow of drugs from the Central Asian country.
Meanwhile, the Afghan Interior Ministry said that early on Wednesday more than 100 armed Taliban militants attempted to capture an administrative center of the country’s southern Uruzgan province, but were repelled by local police fire.
A spokesman said 35 Taliban militants were killed during the armed clash, while three policemen died and six were wounded.
The Taliban radical Islamic group, ousted from power in Afghanistan after a U.S.-led military operation in 2001, has stepped up operations over the past year, with an increase in suicide bombings and other attacks.
The original source of this article is RIA Novosti
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the
copyright owner.
