Beleaguered rebels in Dangam using locals as human-shield

DANGAM (Pajhwok): Officials said on Sunday militants were using locals as human shield and targeting security forces position from their houses in Dangam, a district under intense fighting for weeks in eastern Kunar province.

Abdul Hasib Saddiqi, spokesman of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Maj. Gen. Mohammad Zaman Waziri, commander of the 201^st Sailab military corps and Brig. Gen. Abdul Habib Sayedkhel, police chief of the restive province, told this to journalists in the district.

Intermittent clashes were still underway between Afghan security forces and well-armed Taliban who attacked the district some two weeks back.

Saddiqi told Pajhwok Afghan News rebels were using locals as human shields and pounding security forces position from their houses.

The militants, he said were planning to make their permanent sanctuaries after occupying Dangam and then unleashed anti-state activities from there to create instability in the country.

Taliban’s designated governor for Kunar, Maulvi Umar Mukhlis and insurgents’ chief for the district, Qari Zia-u-Rehman were spearheading the campaign in Dangam, he added.

In addition to other groups from Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) fighters were fighting along with militants against Afghan security forces, he noted.

Waziri said that gun fight was still underway in parts of the district in which 157 insurgents had been killed and 120 others wounded so far. Twenty-six security personnel had also been injured in the firefight.

He assured the nation that militants would be beaten and flushed out of the area soon. Brig. Gen. Abdul Habib Sayedkhel said that anti-militants offensives were underway in the district.

He said that a main base for Afghan security forces had been established in the district from where weapons and other reinforcements were being supplied to the forces.

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