KABUL: A wave of clashes in Afghanistan killed 70 people, including nearly 20 policemen yesterday, officials said, as the country welcomed in its New Year amid alarm about a mounting Taleban-led insurgency.
The unrest has led Washington to deploy 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, due in the coming weeks, in a move a NATO general said yesterday would trigger more violence but would help improve security in the longer run.
Nine of the policemen were killed along with a district chief in a clash yesterday with Taleban in the northern province of Jawzjan, an unusual battlefield for the Taleban militants, who focus on southern and eastern Afghanistan.
“Today in a clash between Taleban and police, the district chief and nine policemen were killed,” provincial police chief Khalil Aminzada told AFP.
The fighting was in a district called Koshtipa, on the border with Turkmenistan, he said.
Nine other policemen were killed and three wounded in the southwestern province of Farah when a mob of Taleban militants attacked them, provincial Gov. Rohul Amin told AFP. Six of the attackers also died in the fighting, he said.
Elsewhere in Farah, a suicide bomber blew up a bomb-filled police vehicle and killed one policeman and wounded two, the governor said. The vehicle had previously been stolen by the militants.
The deadliest fighting was on Thursday, when Afghan and US-led troops killed 30 militants in the flashpoint southern province of Helmand, in a district where a key anti-Taleban lawmaker was killed in a bomb attack the same day.
US President Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 extra US troops for southern Afghanistan and a top-to-bottom review of his war policy, shifting the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fight against militants.
Dutch commander Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif, who heads NATO troops in the south, said yesterday that the arrival of more US troops would trigger a rise in violence but reinforcements would improve security in the longer run.
"I'm absolutely sure that we will see a very important year in RC (Regional Command) South, that we will see a spike in incidents once the US force hits the ground, but the situation will significantly change in a positive way within the next year," Kruif told reporters by video link.
There are currently 75,000 international soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, about 38,000 of them Americans, to help Kabul fight the insurgency, which last year reached its deadliest point yet.
Afghanistan will today mark the start of its New Year, based on the solar calendar also observed in Iran.
