US military kills 25 Taliban in Afghanistan clashes (1st Lead)

Kabul - US military forces claimed on Wednesday to have killed 25 suspected Taliban fighters in separate clashes in eastern and southern Afghanistan, while 19 other rebels were detained by joint Afghan and international troops, officials said. In the latest clash, US-led troops killed 15 suspected militants and detained six others in a raid in Zherai district of southern Kandahar province on Wednesday morning, the US military said in a statement. The killed and detained insurgents were involved in making homemade roadside bomb in the region, it added. Meanwhile, the combined forces targeted a senior Taliban commander in Zormat district of the south-eastern province of Paktia on Tuesday, the US military said in a separate statement. As the forces approached the targeted area, a group of militants barricaded inside a compound fired on the troops with small arms fire, the statement said, adding the joint forces returned fire and killed five armed militants. The targeted commander was 'believed to act as a liaison between the al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist networks, assisting with the movement of foreign fighters into Afghanistan,' the statement said, but did not elaborate if the commander was among those killed. Separately, coalition forces killed another five militants and detained four others in an operation that targeted the Haqqani network sub-commander in Sabari district of the neighbouring province of Paktika on Tuesday, the statement said. Haqqani is an associate group of Taliban insurgents. During the operation, the militants fired on combined forces from inside a compound, it said, adding that troops waited until eight Afghan women and eleven children exited from the building and then killed the militants inside the building. In southern Helmand province, Afghan army soldiers detained nine suspected Taliban insurgents in an operation in Nawa district of the province on Tuesday, the Afghan defence ministry said in a statement. Several heavy weapons and ammunition were discovered by the troops during the search of the suspected militants' house, it added. Southern and eastern provinces of the country, which lie on the border with Pakistan, are the main hub for Taliban activities in the country. Afghanistan has around 2,400 kilometres of porous border with Pakistan, an area that is mostly ungoverned with militants crossing the border freely. Taliban militants have stepped up their attacks on Afghan and some 70,000 international forces in the country. Most of the attacks are initiated by the militants, who often use hit-and-run tactics. The US-led coalition also targets the militants in various areas of the eastern and southern regions in preemptive ways to weaken the insurgents' offensive capability. The Afghanistan conflict so far this year killed more than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents, but including more than 200 foreign soldiers and hundreds of Afghan security forces.