Afghanistan — Insurgents kill Afghans in Uruzgan

Insur­gents in the Deh Rawud region tar­get­ed and killed three Afghan Nation­al Police offi­cers and one civil­ian in two sep­a­rate impro­vised explo­sive device (IED) attacks on the 7th of August.

An Aus­tralian explo­sive ord­nance dis­pos­al team from the Men­tor­ing Task Force (MTF) imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed by mov­ing to the area to ensure any fur­ther dan­ger was removed from the explo­sion sites. The Aus­tralian sol­diers were not involved in these inci­dents in any oth­er way. 

This fol­lows an inci­dent last week (5 Aug 10) in which an Afghan child was like­ly to have been wound­ed in cross-fire between Afghan Nation­al Army (ANA) sol­diers and insur­gents in the Mirabad Valley. 

The inci­dent occurred when an ANA con­voy was tar­get­ed by an IED and small arms fire. The ANA troops, along with oth­ers in the area remained in con­tact with insur­gents for approx­i­mate­ly 15 min­utes after the device detonated. 

Aus­tralian sol­diers under­tak­ing train­ing at a near­by loca­tion respond­ed to the inci­dent by mov­ing to an over­watch posi­tion near the con­tact site and engag­ing a small group of insur­gents who were seen mov­ing through the green zone. 

A short time after the insur­gent attack, an Afghan local brought a young child to a near­by patrol base with a sus­pect­ed gun­shot wound to the arm. 

It is not pos­si­ble to deter­mine whether the child was struck by insur­gents or the ANA. There was no evi­dence to indi­cate that the child was in the area where Aus­tralians engaged the insurgents. 

The child and his father were aero-med­ical­ly evac­u­at­ed to Mul­ti-Nation­al Base — Tarin Kot for fol­low-on treat­ment. The child was lat­er released to the civil­ian hos­pi­tal in Tarin Kot for observation. 

There were no Aus­tralian sol­diers wound­ed and no report­ed injuries to Afghan sol­diers fol­low­ing the 5th of August engagement. 

Aus­tralian men­tors are work­ing close­ly with their ANA part­ners to enhance their bat­tle dis­ci­pline and imme­di­ate actions fol­low­ing an inci­dent. The devel­op­ment of the ANA through con­sis­tent mil­i­tary train­ing, and build­ing dis­ci­pline and con­fi­dence, will lead to a suc­cess­ful tran­si­tion to an Afghan lead. 

Media con­tact: Defence Media Liai­son: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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