The bodies of 11 men, some beheaded, were found Friday in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, police said. Deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Khan said a villager in the Bagh Char area of Khas Uruzgan district spotted the bodies in a field and called police. “They were killed because the Taliban said they were spying for the government, working for the government,” he said. The acting Uruzgan governor, Khudia Rahim, said five or six of the 11 victims had been beheaded. Farther south in Kandahar province, a joint force of Afghan security forces and international troops killed a midlevel Taliban commander and other insurgents Thursday who were planting a roadside bomb near the provincial capital, NATO said. Some of the insurgents were killed by a coalition airstrike, NATO said. It said the Taliban commander, Faizullah, was responsible for roadside bomb attacks in the Arghandab district of Kandahar and is believed to have killed at least one coalition soldier in March. The coalition is ramping up security in and around Kandahar, the largest city in the south, in an effort to drive out insurgents and bring the area under the control of the central Afghan government in Kabul. In Khost province, another joint force captured an alleged operative of the Haqqani network, an Al-Qaeda-linked arm of the Taliban. Afghan and international forces have been involved in intense engagements with the Haqqani network along the border of Khost and Paktia provinces. Several insurgent commanders have been killed during operations, NATO said. Meanwhile, Britain's defense ministry says about 150 troops in Afghanistan have been moved to the insurgent stronghold of Sangin amid fierce combat around the southern town. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Gordon Messenger said in London Friday that soldiers from 40 Commando Battlegroup had been transferred from duties guarding the Kajaki Dam and hydroelectric facilities in Helmand province. A British soldier died in a bomb blast in Sangin Monday and a second in a gun fight in the area Tuesday. On June 9, four American troops died when insurgents in Sangin shot down a NATO helicopter. US Maj. Gen. Richard Mills told reporters in London via a videolink from Helmand that Taliban insurgents were fighting hard to retain the center, but were slowly being pressed back.
