By Carlotta Gall
New York Times
11 May 2003
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 10 — American helicopters and fighter jets fired missiles into a house in eastern Afghanistan late Friday after an American soldier was wounded and an Afghan soldier killed in an ambush, a United States military spokesman said today.
The men who carried out the ambush were thought to have taken refuge in the house, local Afghan officials said.
The ambush was the latest in a series of attacks by presumed Taliban supporters who are opposed to the American military presence in Afghanistan.
The ambush occurred late Friday in Khost Province, which borders Pakistan. Gunmen opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on a convoy of American and Afghan troops.
Fierce fighting ensued as the American and Afghan forces returned fire and chased the attackers to a house in the village of Lalmi, a spokesman for the governor of Khost Province told news agencies.
At dawn, helicopters and fighter jets attacked the house and compound, and a vehicle parked inside the compound exploded in a huge blast, suggesting that it was packed with explosives.
The latest violence came as 10 former Taliban fighters were released and brought home from detention in the Guantánamo Bay, the second such group in six weeks.
The detainees, who were held in Guantánamo for about a year, were never charged with any crime, and said they had been told by their American guards that they could go free and would not be arrested again.
Most of them had been fighting as members of the Taliban forces when they were captured by Afghan forces in 2001 and handed over to the American military.
Today they were being held in Kabul's central prison, pending a release order from the interior minister, and would be free to go home in a day or two, said the deputy police chief, Muhammad Khalil Aminzada.
Mr. Aminzada gathered the detainees in a visiting room at the entrance to their cellblock and gave them a short talk, warning them that if they took up arms again they swiftly would be back behind bars.
The American authorities, criticized for holding Afghan and other detainees in Guantánamo for so long without charging them, have begun releasing Afghan prisoners who do not appear to be of any further intelligence interest or to pose an immediate threat. Three men were released in October, then a group of 18 in March and now this group of 10.
Although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced the end of major combat operations during a visit to Afghanistan last week, attacks by Taliban or other rebels are occurring almost daily on American and Afghan government soldiers.
A spokesman at the American military headquarters at Bagram, north of Kabul, Col. Rodney Davis, confirmed that Friday's ambush had taken place and gave casualty figures, but he declined to provide further details.
Rockets were fired at another American base further south, at Shkin, during the night, he said. The attackers were seen escaping across the border into Pakistan.
The Taliban threat remains a serious concern for President Hamid Karzai, but his government has extended an amnesty to all ordinary members of the Taliban on condition they do not take up weapons against the government.
Mr. Aminzada, the Kabul deputy police chief, warned the detainees who returned from Guantánamo today not to do any more damage to their country by continuing to fight their own people.
"They are Taliban, they were Taliban and they still are," he told reporters. "The only reason they are being released is because they were not closely connected to Al Qaeda." "The leaders of the Taliban and those who are still committed to fighting against civilization, will not get an amnesty," he said.
In his talk to the returning detainees, Mr. Aminzada said: "Fortunately the Americans found nothing against you. You will be freed and it is your choice if you sit at home or start fighting again. If you do fight, you will end up back inside here again."
"What happened in the past we will leave behind," he told them. "But you should not be deceived again. You allowed the foreigners to come into our country, and then they hit the tall buildings in New York and destroyed our country here. Whatever you do, the responsibility is yours. But if there is peace here and no fighting, the Americans will go."
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Citation: Carlotta Gall, "U.S. Forces Fire Missiles at House Believed to Hide Afghan Rebels," New York Times, 11 May 2003.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/international/asia/11AFGH.html?ei=5062&en=154e5ef8841a78da&ex=1053230400&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=
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