Poland loses five soldiers in Afghanistan

    Poland joined the U.S. led mission in Afghanistan in 2002. As with other countries it has suffered a number of casualties as a result.
    Poland's contingent in the Afghan mission at present numbers around 2,500 in all. There have been 36 killed including these five recently killed.
    Reports from Ghazni southwest of Baghdad report they were killed by an exploding mine. The Taliban claim responsibility for the attack.
     Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk called the loss one of the most tragic events of the entire Polish mission. This is the largest attack on the Polish contingent so far. Many countries such as Canada have withdrawn troops or are withdrawing them. Security is supposed to be handed over to the Afghans in 2014 but there may be an agreement to allow troops to stay much longer.

Explosion kills Afghan Police Chief and 3 officers.

Many of the local police are so unpopular that locals support the Taliban. The Taliban just withdraw from an area as long as foreign troops have control or engage in sporadic attacks. It is hardly surprising there is an increasing opposition to the occupation given air and other attacks who have killed a considerable number of non-combatants.

This is from the NYTimes.



July 14, 2009
Explosion Kills Afghan Police Chief and 3 Officers
By CARLOTTA GALL and RUHULLAH KHAPALWAK
KABUL, Afghanistan — The police chief of a district south of Kabul that the Americans had sought to make a Taliban-free model of safety and security was killed Monday along with three of his officers in a roadside blast.
The deaths cast a blow to the American effort and suggested that Taliban operatives had re-infiltrated the district, Jalrez, in Wardak Province.
........
He(Karzai) also addressed the growing concern among Afghans about the foreign troop presence, with the largest increase of American troops since 2001 and a sudden surge in violence. A report published Monday by an independent group of diplomats, the Afghanistan Analysts Network, warned that the Taliban’s appeal is increasing in Afghanistan alongside a “deepening sense of occupation and undercurrents of anti-Westernism.”