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Bill Delaney: More al Qaeda killed in Afghanistan

Delaney
CNN's Bill Delaney  


(CNN) -- Four al Qaeda fighters were killed in two separate skirmishes since Monday in Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials. CNN's Bill Delaney gave CNN anchor Bill Hemmer an update on the flare-up in fighting in Kabul Tuesday.

DELANEY: You know it was just yesterday, Bill, we were north of here at Bagram Air Base -- a place you know rather well -- attending a military briefing with U.S. military officials who told us there hadn't been any kind of major fire fight here in Afghanistan for a couple of weeks, something of a military lull here. How quickly things can change.

It was Monday and into Tuesday morning, that in the town of Khowst, which is in eastern Afghanistan, just about a mile or so from the Pakistan border, U.S.-led Special Forces -- coalition forces killed four al Qaeda terrorists.

The coalition forces had been in eastern Afghanistan on a reconnaissance mission for a couple of days when they came under fire from at least three al Qaeda. They returned fire, killed at least two of them. The 101st Airborne then brought in 200 soldiers -- two companies of infantry soldiers. They began to search caves and several buildings. They found a lot of machine-gun ammunition, mortars and other weapons in these caves and buildings. Subsequent to that, forces again engaged al Qaeda fighters and killed two more.

Now all of this is in eastern Afghanistan, where that big Operation Anaconda took place in March. But the kind of thing we're talking about now is much more typical of the sort of fighting that's going on here now. It's sporadic; it's against small groups of al Qaeda and usually involving small groups of special forces engaging each other only rarely and primarily in eastern Afghanistan.

Now also in eastern Afghanistan, in Paktia Province ... factional fighting between a former governor there who's been shelling the town with rockets has killed dozens of people in the past few days. He is angry about the new governor there.

Factional fighting in eastern Afghanistan, as well as the fire fight we've described, prove that Afghanistan is still a very violent place.

HEMMER: And, Bill, from your location, are you able to witness or see, let's say, soldiers or troops heading east from Bagram in any sort of a unified pattern or fashion that might suggest that there is a continued buildup there, or is that something that is out of your vision?

DELANEY: Well, up at Bagram you see a constant scene of A-10 Warthog fighter planes, Apache helicopters and Chinook helicopters coming and going. There's a lot of activity on that level at Bagram. But as I said, the special forces that are leaving from there, leave out of our eyesight; we didn't see any of them there. And when they're not leaving from Bagram, they're already in eastern Afghanistan and working out of towns like Khowst, this is in fact very difficult stuff to see. These guys are doing everything they can not to be seen. So this is very much a shadowy war at this point, but it continues.



 
 
 
 







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