OEF Update, Jan. 30, 2010: Operations in Afghanistan

Dispatches from the Front:

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 30, 2010 -- A joint Afghan-international security force unit received small arms fire from an unknown source while conducting an operation in Sayyidabad district, Wardak province, early this morning. The joint patrol returned fire.

Initial post-operational reports indicate the small arms fire originated from an Afghan National Army combat outpost, and the subsequent air support called by the joint force likely killed at least four ANA soldiers.

"As stated in the Afghan Ministry of Defence news release issued earlier today, ISAF and ANA will conduct a joint investigation to determine the facts and circumstances of this unfortunate incident," said MOD spokesman Gen. Azimi.

In other news, an Afghan-international security force searched a compound west of the town of Nakhonay, in the Panjwayee district of Kandahar last night and captured a Taliban commander and other insurgents responsible for planning IED attacks and ambushes against Afghan and coalition forces.

No shots were fired and no Afghan citizens were harmed during the operation.

A joint security force found a weapons cache in the Maiwand district of Kandahar yesterday. The cache contained 50 mortar rounds and 20 car batteries. An ISAF explosive ordnance disposal team is assisting with disposal of the cache.

In the Farah province yesterday, an ISAF patrol found a weapons cache near the village of Ranj-e-Pa. The cache consisted of four artillery rounds, two kilograms of ammonium nitrate, one kilogram of an unknown explosive and IED components. The cache will be destroyed by an EOD team.

Additionally, an ISAF force fired on a vehicle when it failed to heed several warning signs to stop in the Muqor district of Ghazni province yesterday.

Two Afghan civilians were killed and one was injured by the disabling shots fired at the engine block of the vehicle as it approached at a high rate of speed. A fourth civilian in the vehicle was unharmed.

In Kandahar, Jan. 23, ISAF forces provided aid to two 12-year-old children near Khakrez after a bomb they were playing with exploded.

The children were playing near a cell phone tower when one picked up what appeared to be a long yellow piece of trash and threw it on the ground causing it to explode. Both received shrapnel wounds to their legs, eye trauma, and multiple lacerations to the face and hands. The children were treated at an ISAF medical clinic.

The greatest victims of IEDs are Afghan civilians, who suffer four times as many casualties from these devices as international forces do.

(Compiled from NATO International Security Assistance Force news releases.)