Afghanistan is still a dangerous place

KABUL, November 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As a U.S. military base came under renewed rocket attack but there were no casualties, at least four Taliban fighters were killed in a late night gunfight along Afghanistan's troubled southeast border with Pakistan, according to military reports Friday, November 14.

"Two rockets landed near the firebase at Shkin Thursday night," Colonel Rodney Davis told reporters at the U.S.-led coalition's Bagram Air Base headquarters - dubbed "the most evil place in Afghanistan" - 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Kabul, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Two CIA agents were killed near Shkin late October, bringing to four the number of agents acknowledged by the Central Intelligence Agency to have been killed in Afghanistan since October 2001.

Shkin lies on the Afghan-Pakistan border, 220 kilometers (136 miles) south of Kabul, and faces a Pakistani tribal area where al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been pursued by Pakistani forces.

More U.S. troops have been killed near Shkin than any other U.S. base in Afghanistan, a U.S. army spokesman has said in September.

Southern and eastern Afghanistan have been hard-hit by a resurgence of the Taliban, who have increasingly targeted aid workers and troops.

A U.N. Security Council delegation Tuesday, November 11, reported after a visit to Afghanistan that insecurity in the south, southeast and east had been "greatly exacerbated by terrorist attacks from suspected Taliban, al-Qaeda and supporters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar."

In northeast Afghanistan, U.S.-led troops backed by war planes were hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives under a fresh offensive dubbed "Operation Mountain Resolve," Davis said.

Mountain Resolve, involving hundreds of U.S.-led soldiers and Afghan forces, was launched last week in neighboring Kunar and Nuristan provinces which border northwest Pakistan’s Chitral district.

Two years after the fall of Kabul to the Northern Alliance, a coalition dominated by 10,000 U.S. troops is still hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda holdouts, mainly along the rugged and porous Afghan-Pakistan border.

Border Region Clashes

Meanwhile, dozens of Taliban fighters armed with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades fought Afghan troops in an hour-long gun battle from about 1:00 am Friday, November 14, in Khost province, Khost military commander Khyal Baz Khan said, AFP reported.

They then retreated towards Pakistan, he said.

"Four Taliban fighters were killed during the fighting," Khan told AFP by satellite phone from Khost city, 140 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Kabul.

There were no casualties among Afghan troops, he added.

"After their defeat they retreated to Pakistani territory, where they always go," he said. The site of the clash is less than 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the porous frontier.

Government forces have reinforced checkpoints along the border to prevent further Taliban "attacks and sabotage" during the Muslim festival of Eid to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan in two weeks' time, Khan said.

Afghan officials have repeatedly charged that Taliban fighters are regrouping over the border where they find sympathy and support from fellow Pashtun tribes.

On Tuesday, at least one Afghan was seriously injured in a car bomb explosion close to United Nations offices in Kandahar, police and witnesses have said, while a foreign soldier died elsewhere in southern Afghanistan.

"It was a car bomb. A Town Ace van was parked across from the UN office and it exploded," Kandahar security commander Hashim Khan has said.

Khan said there were no casualties but an Afghan passerby sustained serious injuries to his legs in the explosion.

A minivan was totally destroyed in the blast around 4:20 pm (1150 GMT) in front of the U.N. Development Program office and meters (yards) from the main U.N. compound in central Kandahar, according to an AFP correspondent.

Khan said "enemies of the government - the Taliban, al-Qaeda and (renegade former prime minister) Gulbuddin Hekmatyar" were responsible for the attack.

A U.N. staffer contacted by AFP said there were no casualties inside the compound and no major damage.

Also, a Romanian soldier was killed and another wounded Tuesday in another attack in the south of the country, near the Pakistan border, a senior government official said.

The soldiers, in Afghanistan for the past four months, were returning to their base in Kandahar when unidentified assailants opened fire on their tank.

It was the first time that Romania has suffered the loss of a soldier as part of an international mission.

Around 430 Romanian military personnel are serving in Afghanistan under United States command as part of the anti-terrorist operation "Enduring Freedom".