US SPECIAL FORCES ENGAGED TALEBAN IN AFGHANISTAN
By a Special Correspondent in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD 20 Oct. (IPS) US Special Forces have clashed with Taleban fighters on the ground in Afghanistan for the first time Friday since air strikes began on 7 October, American officials confirmed.
They said the operation "Hit and Run", involving more than
100 elite troops backed by AC-130 flying gunship, lasted several hours and ended
with the force returning to base.
Few details were given about the action, but Taleban officials said their forces had foiled a US commando raid on positions to the west of the southern city of Qandahar, the home for the Taleban’s supreme leader Mollah Mohammad Omar.
The Special Commandos, backed by helicopters, had attacked an airfield near Qandahar, press reports said.
"A group of special forces, including Army Rangers, went into Afghanistan today - overnight Afghanistan time - to conduct operations," a US official told Reuters news agency.
"We are dismantling the Taleban defences, the Taleban military. We are destroying terrorist hideaways. We are slowly but surely circling the terrorists so that we can bring them to justice", the source said.
Taleban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told Reuters news agency that around 12 o'clock (1930 GMT) last night several US helicopters carrying commandos landed on Baba Sahib mountain but the Taleban approached there and forced them to flee back by firing at them".
"There were no casualties from our side", he added, as Pentagon sources said a US military helicopter had crashed in an accident in neighbouring Pakistan, killing two people, the first American causalities since the start of operations in Afghanistan.
The helicopter was in Pakistani airspace and was reported to be ready to provide rescue help if necessary for the Special Forces, the source added.
But the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted a Taleban official as having said that the helicopter had been hit by their fire inside Afghanistan and crushed in the Pakistan province of Baloochistan.
President George W. Bush, who is in Shanghai for a summit of Pacific nations, was briefed about the operation in a secure video conference.
Referring to the helicopter crash victims, he said: "the important thing for me to tell the American people is these soldiers will not have died in vain".
He said the campaign was making good progress and it was "a just cause". ENDS AFQANESTAN US COMMANDOS 201001