Special forces free prisoners from Taliban
KABUL, Afghanistan – A joint Afghan-U.S. special forces operation has freed at least 40 Afghan prisoners from a Taliban prison in the southern Helmand province, authorities said Friday.
The troops carried out a helicopter assault on the prison in Nawzad district Thursday night, according to a statement from U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The operation freed 40 prisoners, who were captured Afghan police, army and border police.
The Afghan defense ministry said 60 prisoners were rescued. The discrepancy in the number of prisoners freed could not immediately be explained.
It was not yet clear how the prisoners were originally captured.
The original aim of the operation was to arrest a Taliban commander, the defense ministry said in a statement.
In Wardak province about 40 miles east of Kabul, eight people were killed and two wounded Friday in fighting between army troops and Taliban militants.
Several mass graves discovered in Iraq
IRBIL, Iraq – The UN human rights office in Iraq said on Friday that it has received reports of 16 mass graves discovered near the town of Sinjar after it was liberated from the Islamic State group last month.
The reports were the latest among many instances of mass graves being uncovered in territory wrested from IS militants in Iraq and Syria thousands of people have been killed in summary and extrajudicial killings by the Sunni militants and the graves have been a dark testimony to the group’s brutality.
In June 2014, about 1,700 Iraqi soldiers were captured and then killed by IS militants when they overran Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. At the time, the soldiers were trying to flee from Camp Speicher, a nearby army base where they were deployed.
Associated Press
