Agence France Presse  --  Arab News

KABUL, 26 June 2004 — Two US Marines have been killed and one injured during an operation to hunt down extremists in northeast Afghanistan, while a woman and a child were killed by US fire in the same province, officials said yesterday.

The soldiers were killed late Thursday near Asadabad, the capital of mountainous Kunar province bordering Pakistan, Master Sergeant Cindy Beam said. She confirmed that the wounded Marine was in a stable condition but said no other details would be released until next of kin had been notified.

Meanwhile, a woman and her child were killed in the same region during an attack on a civilian house by the US-led coalition, local officials said yesterday. The coalition could not be immediately contacted.

“Last night at about 9:15 p.m. (1645 GMT Thursday) Americans fired an ... artillery round which hit a house,” police chief Matiullah Safi said.

“Nuhmand, a man, was wounded, his wife and young son were killed. The artillery, which was fired from the American base, hit the house in Darre-i-Pech” about 35 km west of Asadabad. The deaths were confirmed by Kunar Governor Sayed Fazel Akbar.

The coalition has inadvertently killed civilians on several occasions since entering Afghanistan in late 2001.

Some 20,000 US-led troops are working around the country to hunt and kill Taleban, Al-Qaeda and other militants.

In the last two months more than 10 members of the US-led coalition of marines, soldiers, air personnel and special operations and intelligence forces have been killed in Afghanistan.

Six died in May and another two in June, one killed by a roadside bomb in south central Afghanistan and the other during a “non-hostile” incident at the main US base at Bagram north of Kabul that is still under investigation.

More than 2,000 US Marines are deployed to Afghanistan, and are engaged in offensives against suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants mainly in the south, south central and southeastern regions. The rugged areas surrounding Asadabad, are believed to be infiltrated by members of the ousted Taleban regime as well as militants loyal to former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Police chief Safi said American-led military activity had taken place near Asadabad on Thursday. “We don’t know if any American has died but on Thursday American helicopters were flying over and around Asadabad and they bombed a hilltop some seven to eight kilometers north of the American base,” which is in the west of Asadabad, he said.

The latest deaths bring to 131 the number of US-led coalition troops killed in Afghanistan since an American-led offensive began in late 2001.

The number of attacks against Afghan and coalition troops has increased in recent weeks, while some 80 suspected militants have been killed in the southeast in American-led offensives.

The offensives have been designed to flush out militants in the “Taleban heartland”, the neighboring provinces of south-central Uruzgan, southern Kandahar and southeastern Zabul, ahead of landmark elections planned for September.