In a mountainous area in western Afghanistan, insurgents ambushed a NATO coalition supply convoy, which sparked a three-hour firefight leaving an Afghan soldier, 5 Afghan security guards, and 14 attackers dead, officials reported on Thursday. According to a spokesman for the Afghan National Army’s western region, Najibullah Najibi said the fight raged on Wednesday along a highway regularly used by coalition supply trucks in the Bala Buluk district of Farah province. Najibi said, “The fighting was intense and we sent in extra forces.”
There were also a number of militants killed in a separate battle. Raouf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Afghan National Police in the west, reported more than 30 militants were killed and 10 others wounded. An official for the Ayra security company, Sayed Abdul Wahid, said that his workers were fighting with AK-47s, but were overpowered by militants, who were using heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. Wahid also said that five of his employees were killed and five others were injured by insurgents who burned three vehicles in the convoy. Within the last three months of this year, 86 international troops have been killed in Afghanistan.
