Nato and US-led troops backed up by warplanes said Wednesday they had killed nearly 170 Taliban in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, while a US-led coalition soldier also died. The heaviest of the fighting with the Islamic insurgents erupted on Tuesday in the volatile southern province of Helmand.
A Taliban stronghold, and continued into Wednesday, the coalition said. "The initial estimate by the ground force commander assessed that more than 104 insurgents were killed thus far in the engagement," it said in a statement. The figures could not be verified independently.
A soldier with the 15,000-strong US-dominated coalition was also killed and four wounded, it said. The nationalities of the foreign soldiers were not announced. The fighting erupted during an Afghan and coalition patrol aimed at clearing an "extensive trench system" near the Taliban-controlled district centre of Musa Qala in Helmand, Afghanistan's main opium-growing province.
More than 65 rebels were killed late Tuesday in a similar battle in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan, another hotbed for the Taliban insurgents, said a separate Nato-led force which has around 40,000 troops. Nato warplanes and artillery supported the Afghan and Nato forces on the ground, it said.
"Precision-guided munitions were employed on positively identified Taliban positions, killing more than 65 insurgents," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) statement said. There have been several major clashes in southern Afghanistan in the past few weeks during which scores of rebels have been killed.
Comments
Comments are closed.