Afghanistan bombing kills 25 including veteran photographer, three staff, including photographer; U.S. forces raid Kandahar Airfield for suspected Taliban fighters
By Anwar S. Agha and Saeed S. Moustafa
WASHINGTON/SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – The death toll from the U.S. military air raid on Afghanistan’s largest port city of Kandahar on Tuesday was 25, including 11 U.S. service members and two of the city’s security forces, a Reuters correspondent in Kandahar said.
The incident involved three U.S. service members, five Afghan security personnel and the driver of one vehicle. One service member was also wounded, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) told Reuters by email.
The Taliban announced an end to attacks on the port by Wednesday afternoon, its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.
The military said its operation, known as a “kill list” in NATO parlance, targeted a terrorist cell believed to강릉안마 have carried out the Jan. 2 attack that left 12 U.S. service members dead.포커
The mission also “put an end to terrorist financing in Kandahar” and “finally reduced terrorism threats in the Kandahar region,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Army Colonel Brian Tribus said in the statement.
The Taliban denied involvement in the attack, and officials from the U.S. military and Afghan security forces were meeting on Tuesday to discuss the latest setback in their efforts to counter attacks on U.S. interests in the war-torn nation.
The strike, which also killed five militants and wounded eight others, occurred in the morning o속초출장샵n a port highway, according to U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Bill Urban.
“It’s a real shame the Taliban has made that move to disrupt our operations. It’s unfortunate the city lost a lot of time and a lot of lives,” an Afghan journalist said after the crash. “It’s the U.S. government’s responsibility to protect civilians from being murdered by terrorists. This should have been more obvious.”
The convoy involved included seven U.S. Marine combat vehicles that had parked along a side road.
“We believe it was being driven by a civilian, and the truck driver was a civilian. We don’t know for certain that he was a terrorist,” said Col. James Boyce, a spokesman for Central Command.
The U.S. military had said earlier on Tuesday that a civilian truck drive