Khyber News

KUNAR: At least 13 militants were killed in a NATO blitzed in eastern Afghanistan here on Saturday. 

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mudjahid, speaking to media from an undisclosed location, confirmed the attack, saying 13 of the group’s fighters were killed.

The air strike, carried out with the approval of Afghan forces, came after the allies “observed a large group of insurgents in a remote area and engaged them,” a spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said. 

“There are no civilian casualties,” he added. “Afghan and foreign forces are currently conducting a follow-up assessment.”

Taliban militants had gathered to publicly execute a man accused of killing another man from a rival family a day before in Chapa Dara district of Kunar province, the district police chief Najibullah Gujar said.

“Between 40 and 60 Taliban militants were killed in the air strike in Chapa Dara,” he said.

“People had arrested the killer and the Taliban wanted to execute him in public.” But Mohammad Daud Zarba, deputy police chief of Kunar, told a foreign news agency the militants wanted to attack and take over the district. He said around 30 militants were killed in the attack.

Dost Mohammad, a witness in the area, told a foreign news agency that the burnt bodies of the Taliban were still on the ground.

“Out of around 80 Taliban who had come to settle the dispute only around 15 could escape the bombing,” he said.

In some parts of the war-torn country where the government has no control, the Taliban operate a parallel government, with shadow governors and their own Sharia justice system.

Public executions of alleged murderers and adulterers were common when the Taliban regime was in power from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a US-led invasion following the September 11 attacks. -- Agencies