Four in Special Forces Killed in Afghanistan

Four members of the American special operations forces were killed in action in a southern Afghan province at the heart of a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency, the U.S. military said today. The troops died Saturday in Zabol province, about 240 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, military spokeswoman Master Sgt. Cindy Beam said in an e-mail statement. She gave no details of how they were killed.

“Four U.S. service members assigned to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan were killed in action today here in southern Afghanistan,” Beam said. She didn’t say which service the four were attached to and said the names of the soldiers would not be released pending notification of their families.

The toll was among the worst suffered by U.S. forces since the start of the war that toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001 for harboring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Zabol, an impoverished province on the Pakistani border where the Afghan government has little control, has emerged as a stronghold of Taliban militants who have carried out a string of deadly attacks on Afghan and U.S.-led security forces since the spring.

The U.S. military says the violence, which has killed more than 350 people across Afghanistan, is aimed at disrupting the country’s first post-Taliban elections slated for September.

To ensure that the vote proceeds, American commanders have boosted the number of U.S.-led troops here to about 20,000, their largest force yet.

Those forces often work closely with Afghan militia troops and are also believed to spearhead efforts to track down fugitive leaders, including Bin Laden and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, both of whom may be hiding along the rugged Pakistani border.

Farther north along the border, the U.S. military said Saturday, two American soldiers were wounded in a clash with militants. The skirmish occurred Thursday near Shkin, a border town in Paktika province south of Kabul.