Gun battles and firefights have claimed the lives of three
people, including one police and two suspected Taliban operatives,
in the troubled provinces of Zabul and Helmand in southern
Afghanistan, local officials said Monday.
"A group of armed Taliban rebels attacked police patrol near
Zabul's provincial capital Qalat Sunday night, killing one
policeman and wounding another," a police official in Qalat city
Ghulam Jilani Khan told Xinhua
On the other hand, Afghan and NATO forces launched an operation
in Gereshk district of Helmand province Sunday resulting in killing
two Taliban militias, police chief of Helmand province Mohammad
Nabi Mullahkhil told Xinhua.
"There were no casualties of Afghan and NATO forces," he
added.
This year has been witnessing increasing militancy as more than
2,600 people, mostly Taliban rebels, have been killed in
Afghanistan since January.?
Meanwhile, some 130 anti-government militants laid down their
arms and joined the Afghan government, according to a local
newspaper report.
"As many as 130 dissidents surrendered under the
government-backed National Reconciliation Commission (NRC)," daily
Outlook writes.
Majority of the former rebels, mostly from the restive southern
and eastern provinces, according to the daily, were loyal to the
former Prime Minister Gulbudin Hekmatyar or the remnants of the
ousted Taliban regime.
Twenty more militants loyal to Hekmatyar switched side and
joined the government in the eastern Kunar province last week.
Nearly 2,000 militants, according to Sibghatullah Mujadadi, the
head of the NRC, have laid down arms and resumed their normal lives
over the past one and half year.
(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2006)
