More than 600 rebels have been killed in the past 45 days of the biggest anti-Taliban operation since the hard-liners were removed from government in 2001, the United States-led coalition said on Tuesday.
Since June 10, ”more than 600 enemy fighters have been killed,” US military spokesperson Colonel Thomas Collins told reporters in Kabul.
Operation Mountain Thrust, involving about 10 000 Afghan and coalition troops and support staff, is focused on southern Afghanistan where the militants are active and kicked off in mid-May.
Thirty foreign troops, most of them from the US-led coalition, have died in combat in the same period. Another 30 had died from the start of the operation. The latest was a US soldier who died in an attack in Kunar province on Monday.
Afghanistan’s main human right watchdog has estimated that more than 600 civilians have been killed or wounded in insurgency-linked unrest in this year.
About 70% of the casualties were caused by Taliban-linked attacks, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said last week.
Violence largely blamed on the remnants of the former Taliban regime, which was overthrown in a US-led offensive in late 2001, has peaked this year.
Government officials and coalition leaders have said some of the violence is carried out by militants who cross the border from Pakistan to carry out attacks.
This is a ”significant problem” despite the efforts of Pakistani, Afghan and coalition forces deployed on the border, the colonel said.
However he praised the Pakistani military’s efforts against the rebels. Pakistan says it has deployed more than 80 000 troops along the 2 400km rugged border between the neighbours.
”Nobody has captured or killed more terrorists than the Pakistanis have and certainly nobody has lost more troops to the extremists than Pakistan has,” Collins said.
Pakistan says 600 of its troops have been killed on the border.
The Taliban and their allies are trying to overthrow the government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai. — Sapa-AFP