TRANSLATING A BUSHISM INTO ARABIC

U.S. soldiers kill about 24 suspected Taliban militants (NOOR KHAN, July 20, 2003,
Associated Press)

U.S. soldiers killed about two dozen suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan after their convoy came under attack, the military said Sunday.

The suspected militants ambushed the convoy Saturday near the town of Spinboldak, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Douglas Lefforge.

The American troops returned fire, killing five attackers and pursuing the rest into the surrounding hills, Lefforge said.

U.S. Apache helicopter gunships chased the group and killed an estimated 19 of the suspected Taliban, he said. There were no coalition casualties.

Thus the President's taunt for the Islamicists to: "Bring it on".

MORE:
Taliban fighters return to ambush coalition forces (Ahmed Rashid, 21/07/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Hundreds of Taliban fighters have crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan and are claiming large swathes of the country, the American commander of coalition forces in Kabul said yesterday.

As the Taliban intensified their attacks on American and Afghan forces over the weekend, Gen F L "Buster" Hagenbeck said the Taliban and its allies have regrouped in Pakistan, recruiting fighters from religious schools in the city of Quetta in a campaign funded by drug trafficking.

Groups of fighters have crossed the porous border and divided eastern Afghanistan into three zones for launching attacks, he said.

They have been joined by al-Qa'eda commanders who are establishing new cells and who are sponsoring the attempted capture of American troops.

"There are large numbers of Taliban coming back into southern Afghanistan but there have been some recent successes in resisting them," said Gen Hagenbeck, acting commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan.

"We have a very robust intelligence feed out there and we have a continuing strategy in which we will go to all the places that we need to track down the Taliban," he added.

"There are three groups made up of between 25 to 100 Taliban operating in Helmand province and they are facilitating the drugs trade."

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2003 4:58 PM