Kabul - Thirty Taliban militants were killed in clashes
with NATO and Afghan forces in separate incidents in southern
Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.
A statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) said 25 Taliban fighters were killed in the southern
Kandahar province Tuesday night in a raid on rebel hideouts.
NATO and Afghan forces raided Taliban compounds used for making
roadside bombs near the Belandi area, the statement said.
Explosives and weapons were also found in the compounds after the
operation ended, it said.
Elsewhere, ISAF and Afghan troops said they killed a Taliban
commander involved in roadside attacks in the southwestern Farah
province. They also captured three other rebels in the provincial
capital Farah on Monday.
In the southern province of Zabul, local officials say two
intelligence officials and four Taliban fighters were killed in
separate incidents.
Provincial police chief Ghulam Jailani Farahi said Taliban
fighters ambushed a vehicle carrying local intelligence officials
late Tuesday near the provincial capital Qalat. The Taliban said they
killed three intelligence officials in the attack.
The Zabul police chief said four Taliban fighters were killed in
Siori district of the province as they attacked a joint patrol of
Afghan and foreign troops Tuesday night.
In Helmand province, where NATO-led British troops have launched
a major offensive, ISAF said its troops killed a driver after he
failed to heed warnings to stop his car in the Babaji area, north of
the provincial capital Lashkargah.
'Following standard ISAF procedures and suspecting the vehicle
carried a suicide bomber who represented an imminent threat to life,
the ISAF troops acted in self defence and fired upon the vehicle,'
the military said. Another person in the car was wounded.
Meanwhile, the Taliban said they destroyed a military vehicle of
NATO troops and killed several soldiers in an attack in Babaji area
on Tuesday.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said NATO and Afghan forces
landed in the desert of Babaji three days ago and that the militants
had heavily mined the area to prevent troop advances.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story