The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that its soldiers returned fire and killed 15 insurgents in the southern Zabul province of Afghanistan but conceded that 2 of their vehicles were damaged in the conflict but suffered no casualties.

Uruzgan, Halmand, and Zabul are provinces of Kandahar and is dominated by a resurgent Taliban using heroin crops to fund their campaigns and disappear into Pakistan when they are chased down by the NATO and previously by US troops.

Meanwhile, a powerful bomb, the fifth in the capital of the North West Frontier Province , hidden in a push cart in Peshawar killed 9 people and injured 30 people. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the incident but Pakistani officials say that a “foreign hand” was behind this blast and called the perpetrators “neither human nor Muslim.” Pakistan has been accusing India and Afghanistan of colluding to create violence in Pakistan . However, there is nothing to suggest that such violence is perpetrated by either.

Pakistan has little, if any, control of these tribal areas and its troops are at the mercy of marauding tribesmen who are known for their fighting and fierceness. Recently, conceding defeat, Pakistan signed a peace treaty with the elders who promised to restrain the Pakistani Taliban.