U.S. army spokesman Colonel Roger King told reporters
several suspected Taliban militants had been killed and wounded
in the bombing raids in mountainous Helmand province after U.S.
soldiers came under fire.
A spokesman for the government of Helmand told Reuters
there were more civilian deaths in the latest bombing raids on
Wednesday night after at least 17 civilians, mainly women and
children, died in attacks since Sunday.
"I know there have been casualties last night, but I do not
know how many," Haji Mohammad Wali told Reuters by phone from
Helmand's capital Lashkargah.
A villager said he had seen the bodies of eight people, all
members of one family, who he said died in Wednesday's air
attack carried out by a U.S. B-52 bomber and AC-130 gunship in
northern Helmand's Baghran Valley.
King said U.S.-led coalition planes had targeted caves and
ridgelines where a group of about 30 armed men believed linked
to the ousted Taliban regime were sighted.
"Battle damage assessment conducted in support of operation
Eagle Fury has not indicated any non-combatant casualties to
date," he said at coalition headquarters in Bagram, north of
the Afghan capital Kabul.
He said a B-52 aircraft dropped a 2,000-pound "smart bomb"
at caves in the Baghran valley on Wednesday night and an AC-130
gunship fired ten 105 mm cannon rounds.
King said a number of opposing fighters had been killed but
he declined to be specific, expect to say the total was
"something less than the 30 we have seen."
SUSPECTED TALIBAN
According to the coalition, the operation began on Monday
after U.S. Special forces traveling through the remote valley
came under heavy fire.
"We had intelligence that led us to believe that there were
a number of hostiles in that valley," King said. "Everything we
got right now leads us to believe our intelligence was correct.
A villager said the coalition bombs had hit civilians.
"Eight people from one family were killed in last night's
bombing," Jeelani, a trader, told Reuters by satellite
telephone from the area.
Another villager, Mohammad Gul, said Afghan soldiers who
had accompanied the 100-odd U.S. soldiers were looting homes.
King said coalition forces had detained 15 people for
questioning over suspected links with the Taliban.
He said the bombing had targeted an area overlooking the
Baghran valley from where U.S. forces had been fired upon.
Helmand province, like neighboring Kandahar, was a
stronghold of the fundamentalist Taliban movement and officials
say there is still a measure of support in the region for its
hard-line interpretation of Islam.
In recent weeks there has been an increase in attacks in
southern Afghanistan (news - web sites) by groups believed to be linked to the
Taliban and a renegade warlord.
About 13,000 U.S.-led coalition troops are in Afghanistan
hunting remnants of the Taliban and the al Qaeda network blamed
for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
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