AFGHAN DEATHS HIT 500 IN 3 WEEKS

Daily Violence Raises Fears Of A Resurgence Of The Taliban

The worst three weeks of violence since the fall of the Taliban have
left more than 500 people dead, the U.S.-led coalition said Saturday.

Fighting on Saturday killed six insurgents and three police,
officials said. Late Friday, a top Afghan intelligence agent narrowly
survived a bomb attack on his convoy that killed three other people
near the capital, Kabul.

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Order Reprints Much of the recent Taliban fighting is believed
funded by the country's $2.8 billion trade in opium and heroin --
about 90 percent of the world's supply.

The daily violence has raised fears of a Taliban resurgence almost
five years after the Islamic extremists were driven out by a U.S.-led
invasion for harboring al-Qaida.

More than 44 militants were among those killed in the last week. More
than 30 of them died in a battle with Canadian and Afghan troops in
Zabul province on Monday, a coalition statement said.

A coalition spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, said there would be
no letup in attacks on militants.

"We will not be deterred from our mission to provide a safe and
secure environment to the Afghan people," he said in a U.S. military statement.

In an apparent attempt to kill Kabul's director of government
intelligence, Humayoon Aini, a bomb ripped through the first car in
his convoy late Friday, killing a local politician and two other
people, said Kabul's police chief, Amanullah Ghazar.

Aini, who was in the second car, was unhurt, Ghazar said. The
intelligence director had been returning to the capital from a
meeting in a neighboring district, Ghazar said.

In southern Zabul province Saturday, Afghan troops battled insurgents
for hours, killing two and capturing two, before dozens of others
fled into nearby mountains, army commander Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi said.

The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that in the past week 9 tons
of opium and 88 pounds of heroin have been seized in raids across the country.

The United States, Britain and other countries are spending hundreds
of millions of dollars fighting the drug business.