KABUL – Officials from the Afghan National Army (ANA) on Monday said troopsare advancing their military campaign against Taliban operatives in thevolatile region of Logar province in a move to eliminate insurgentstrongholds.
They said army forces have dealt major blows to the Taliban in some keyareas of Mohammad Agha district in the province, which resulted in theelimination of dozens of Taliban fighters including the group’s localcommander, Jamaluddin.
The operations will continue until all areas in the insecure regions arecleared of Taliban, said officials.
“We have launched operations in Mohammad Agha district, we have completedour search and clearance operation in Mohammad Agha and a key Talibancommander Mullah Jamaluddin was eliminated there.
A cache of weapons, explosives and binoculars and documents wererecovered. We are still working on some other important issues to make surethat their hideouts and camps are destroyed,” said Esmatullah Alizai, Logarpolice chief.
Meanwhile, Gen. Abdul Raziq Sapai, the commander of the 4th Army Division,has said that security forces also seized a huge cache of munitions andexplosives during an operation in Charkh district of the province.
“We have seized thousands of kilograms of explosives as a result of thejoint coordination between the army, police and personnel of the NationalDirectorate of Security. Now the people’s trust has been restored in thesecurity forces. People believe that the security forces are now able todefend them and prevent the infiltration of insurgents.
We are firmly committed to providing security to our people. The enemy haslost its war capability compared to a year ago. We wrapped up a verysuccessful operation in Charkh district including in Tangi Wardak andBaraki Barak districts and around Pul-e-Alam regions,” said Sapai.
In addition to this, local residents in the area have hailed the securityforces for safeguarding the lives of civilians during the battles.
“First I want to recommend that where ever government carries out anoperation, they must be careful, because every operation needs a majorinvestment, check posts need to be established in areas where theoperations are being carried out, government must establish check posts toensure security of the site which is cleared of the militants.
Unfortunately, in the past we saw that several operations were launchedhere and opponents returned to the area only a few days after theoperations ended. Government invests heavily in every operation,” saidMohibullah Saleh, a member of Logar provincial council.
But residents have said that security forces must ensure that the Talibanare not able to return to areas that have been cleared during suchoperations.