Afghanistan | Friday
AL-QAIDA and Taliban forces are offering $100 000 bounties for the capture of coalition soldiers in Afghanistan, a US military representative said on Friday.
Leaflets have been distributed in the eastern province of Paktia where US-led coalition forces are now concentrating their campaign against diehard enemy fighters, the US army representative said.
They pledge rewards of $100 000 for the capture of a coalition soldier and $50 000 for the killing of one.
”We continue to receive credible threats of violence against coalition service members, citizens and journalists,” Major Bryan Hilferty told reporters at this base north of Kabul.
”This may take the form of rocket or mortar attacks, vehicle bombs or direct action against soft targets. There have also been leaflets found in Paktia province offering rewards for capturing or killing coalition members,” he said.
The representative said that the focus of the campaign was concentrating on eastern Afghanistan, in the wake of a rocket attack on coalition forces on Wednesday.
”We are focusing our main efforts on eastern Afghanistan – the Gardez, Khost area,” he said.
Five tube-launched rockets were fired at a unit in the Shahi Kot valley, more than two weeks after the conclusion of the massive Operation Anaconda offensive in the area.
The United States claims that hundreds of enemy fighters were killed in the operation and the middle-ranking leadership of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network was wiped out, although few bodies have been found.
Hilferty said the rockets were launched ”from several kilometres away … we think they came from the south of the Shahi Kot valley area”.
A couple of hundred Afghan coalition forces were operating in the area alongside dozens of special forces troops, he added.
He denied the attacks indicated that enemy forces were still operating in the Shahi Kot valley, where coalition troops have been trawling through caves used by al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.
”I think the Shahi Kot valley is still cleared. If you were attacked from several kilometres away, that is not the same that the valley is not cleared.
”It seems to be more in the line of the Iraqi Scud attacks in Desert Storm (the 1991 Gulf War). You just launch it and hope you kill someone. It is not particularly well aimed,” he said.
Hilferty said coalition forces had not been informed about a series of arrests by Afghan intelligence services probing an alleged bomb plot against the interim administration.- Sapa-AFP