Afghan forces start operation to rescue captured soldiers

Iran Press TV

Wed Nov 25, 2015 9:29AM

Afghan security forces have launched an operation to rescue the soldiers that were taken into captivity by the Taliban terrorist group after their helicopter made an emergency landing in a territory under the militants' control.

"Security forces have started a clearance operation to free the captives," the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday.

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Russian-built Mil Mi-17 helicopter, with 17 Afghan army soldiers on board, was flying from Balkh's provincial capital city of Mazar-i-Sharif to the northern province of Faryab on Tuesday when it performed an emergency landing in the Pashtun Kot district due to poor weather conditions.

Three troops reportedly died in the landing, and then Taliban militants attacked the aircraft and took the other soldiers hostage.

Faryab is among the relatively volatile provinces in northern Afghanistan, where militant groups are actively operating in a number of its districts and often perpetrate acts of terror.

Meanwhile, Afghan forces have killed more than two dozen Taliban militants and wounded a number of others in a series of clean-up operations across the strife-torn country over the past 24 hours.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that 31 militants were killed, six injured and two others arrested in a series of operations carried out in the provinces of Faryab, Ghor, Helmand, Jowzjan, Kunar, Laghman, Nangarhar and Paktia.

The statement, however, did not provide any information about potential casualties among soldiers and security forces.

Afghan soldiers also confiscated light and heavy weaponry and defused several rounds of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Afghanistan is gripped by insecurity 14 years after the United States and its allies attacked the country as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. Although the 2001 attack overthrew the Taliban, many areas across Afghanistan still face violence and insecurity.