40 Taliban killed in Pakistan

[Timber Loftis]

Taliban, Taliban, turn over bin-Laden. Daylight come and me wanna go home.

From today's NYTimes:

Up to 40 Taliban Guerrillas Are Killed in a Major Defeat
By CARLOTTA GALL

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 5 — Up to 40 Taliban guerrillas and seven Afghan government soldiers have been killed in the Taliban's worst defeat since it was driven from power by an American-led coalition in 2001, officials said today.

The seven-hour battle took place on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, about 20 miles northeast of the border town of Spin Boldak, the main crossing point to Pakistan, a senior government official in Spin Boldak, told Reuters today.

"We surrounded an entire group of Taliban and killed about 40 of them after heavy fighting," the official, Syed Fazal Din Agha, said.

Troops were sent in after the guerrillas attacked the district commissioner's office in the Loi Karez area. Seven soldiers were killed, he said.

Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for the provincial governor, put the number of government soldiers killed at six, with six wounded.

Referring to the toll among the Afghan rebels, he was reported as saying, "This is the first time so many have been killed in an operation since their fall."

The United States military said on Wednesday that an operation involving hundreds of coalition troops to hunt down Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in another province bordering Pakistan had resulted in the detention of 21 suspects.

No international troops were involved in Wednesday's fighting, an Afghan official said.

Twenty-one bodies that government officials said belonged to the Taliban were laid out near the Pakistan border so that relatives could collect them.

About 11,500 foreign troops are in Afghanistan searching for remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the group held responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Not that I am sad that 40 taliban people were killed or anything...but why is every skirmish won claimed as a "Major Defeat" for the Taliban? Geez, don't they ever loose the minor battles?