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KABUL (SW): The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has discarded media reports about the U.S. forces preparing to conduct night raids in the capital Kabul against suspected insurgents.
In a latest report, the Washington Post noted that the United States is bolstering its efforts to help the Afghan government squash a rash of deadly high-profile attacks in its capital city through Special Operations raids, intelligence to map out residents and additional military advising.
The WP quoted top U.S. Commander, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. saying that defending Kabul is the main goal for the U.S.-led military coalition right now. “Yes, the Taliban is in the city,” Nicholson said. “Yes, there are facilitation networks in the city. These networks need to be identified and destroyed, and then the safe houses or whatever locations they have developed need to be identified and eliminated.”
Commenting on this, Nusrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the MoI, informed Salam Watandar that this is a ‘baseless’ report. He said the Afghan forces have the capacity to conduct night raids, and there is no participation of foreign forces in night raids. The spokesman said the foreign forces are only helping in intelligence related affairs.
It comes as the U.S. and Afghan governments plan to increase the number of Afghan special forces from 19,022 to 33,896 by 2020, according to a Pentagon report to Congress released in December, the WP has reported.
ENDS
