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Operation Mountain Lion enters 2nd day

* Afghan forces kill suspected Taliban militant, capture three others
* Taliban rocket strikes defence compound near Karzai’s palace

KABUL: Thousands of Afghan and coalition troops backed by US and British warplanes continued strikes on Thursday against a known insurgent area in the second day of Operation Mountain Lion, while in separate incidents, a suspected militant was killed and a rocket struck the country’s defence compound.

About 2,500 troops launched Operation Mountain Lion on Wednesday with a series of pre-dawn air and ground assaults in Kunar province, in one of the allied forces’ biggest campaigns since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban regime. The operation started in Kunar’s Pech River Valley, “an area notorious for terrorist activity” and was aimed at “disrupting insurgents’ activities, denying them sanctuary and preventing their ability to re-supply”, the US military said in a statement.

Coalition air forces were providing 24-hour support to troops, according to a separate air force statement. F-15 Eagle fighter jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground support planes and massive B-52 heavy bombers were “providing close-air support for troops on the ground who are rooting out insurgent sanctuaries and support networks,” it said.

Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers were also providing combat support and Global Hawk and Predator unmanned aerial vehicle aircraft were supplying intelligence and surveillance information.

“However long it takes to rid this area of extremist activity, we’ll be there,” said James Redmore, the command sergeant major of the US-led Task Force Spartan, one of several units involved in the operation. Operation Mountain Lion was launched a day after a rocket hit a school in the Kunar provincial capital Asadabad, killing seven children and wounding 33 others and a teacher.

Officials blamed the attack on the Taliban. A European military official in Kabul said that the latest coalition operations were in response to the new Taliban offensive. “They want to reoccupy the terrain and show the neo-Taliban that they do not have the upper hand,” she said on condition of anonymity. “It is also matter of reassuring the population.”

Elsewhere in the country, Afghan forces killed a suspected militant in a swoop on a village outside Kabul, security forces said on Thursday. Security forces rounded on Tagab village, about 50 kilometres northeast of Kabul, on Wednesday after an intelligence tip-off indicated that militants were holed up and planning an ambush, a defence ministry spokesman said.

A suspected militant was killed in a shootout, another wounded and three others captured along with a number of weapons, mines and ammunitions, said a ministry statement, describing the men as “enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan”, a title Afghan officials use for Taliban insurgents.

The operation in Kapisa province, which has been relatively free Taliban-linked insurgency activities, was the first in the area in years. In another incident, a rocket fired by unknown attackers late on Wednesday struck a few hundred metres from the presidential palace and landed in a defence ministry compound, without causing casualties, the interior ministry said.

President Hamid Karzai lives and works at the presidential palace. The rocket hit while he was on an official visit to India. He returned to Afghanistan on Thursday. AFP

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