Eurasia Press & News
A joint team of Afghan and U.S. coalition forces battled a large group of suspected Taliban militants in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province before calling in an air strike that killed 20 insurgents, the coalition said in a statement Thursday.
The coalition said dozens of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms Wednesday ambushed foreign and Afghan troops conducting a foot patrol in Helmand province’s Kajaki district Wednesday, a hotbed of Taliban activity.
Following a firefight, the militants were forced into “secondary fighting position” and once the combined patrol ensured there were no non-combatants in the area, they called in precision strike that hit the militants, the statement said adding 20 militants were killed in the engagement while reporting no Afghan or coalition military casualties.
Wednesday’s clashes came a day after 31 militants were killed in a series of clashes in the same region.
Southern Afghanistan is not only the center of the Taliban-led insurgency, but also the world’s largest producer of opium. According to the U.N., hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit trade are used to fund the insurgency.
Violence in Afghanistan is expected to surge this year. The U.S. is sending 21,000 additional forces–most of whom are going to the south–to bolster 38,000 American troops already in the country in an attempt to contain a resurgent Taliban.
