The Hindu : 'Taliban weapons cache' found

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 21, 2003

International

International

'Taliban weapons cache' found

KANDAHAR June 20. Afghan security forces discovered hundreds of land mines, rockets and machine gun ammunition in an underground weapons cache they suspect belonged to the ousted Taliban militia, a government official in south-western Nimruz province said on Friday.

The weapons were seized late on Wednesday near a village in Ghar Ghori district of the province, about 400 km southwest of Kandahar, said Haji Yar Mohammed, chief of the regional administration.

Residents of Shagiraskh village led local security forces to the weapons cache on the edge of a desert, Mohammed said.

When the troops dug up the site, they found 760 land mines and 520 boxes containing hundreds of rockets and an unspecified quantity of machine gun ammunition, he said.

A U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban regime in 2001. About 11,500 coalition troops, most of them Americans, are currently in Afghanistan searching for remnants of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda.The coalition and Afghan troops routinely discover arms across Afghanistan's mostly rugged territory.

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