About 100 militants were killed in Afghanistan's Helmand province, half in air strikes that thwarted a major attack on a key town overnight, Afghan and British forces said Sunday.
Between 50 and 60 militants were killed in air strikes as they tried to enter the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah from three directions.
The attempt was "virtually unprecedented" in the area in the scale of the attacking force and their degree of co-ordination, said Lieutenant Colonel Woody Page, a spokesman for the British military, which has a base in Lashkar Gah.
Around 40 more were killed in a three-day operation in the nearby Nad Ali district that wound up Saturday, Afghan and British forces said.
It was impossible to independently verify the tolls from the battles in Helmand, Afghanistan's main opium-producing province and a stronghold of the Taliban, whom officials say are linked to other extremists and drugs traders.
As many as 150 fighters were spotted gathering outside Lashkar Gah over the past three days, Page told AFP.
"We knew they were massing outside of the city," he said. "The operation that was launched last night was deliberately launched to defeat them outside Lashkar Gah."
He said about 50 of the attackers were killed while a spokesman for the Helmand government, Daud Ahmadi, put the death toll at 62. "Last night they attacked from three directions ... to divide and keep our forces busy," Ahmadi told AFP. "The joint forces of Nato, Afghan army and police fought them."
Groups of dead bodies had been left at various places, he said. "Our information suggests that 62 Taliban were killed. This figure might rise even higher," he said. The provincial police chief, Assadullah Shairzad, said dozens of rebels had died, adding that security forces suffered no losses.
"They launched their attack in big numbers from a southern direction, from Bolan area, but our forces were aware of their plan and were watching them," he said. "A big number of militants were killed at different locations."
Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), under which the British forces serve, said a "major insurgent attack" had been thwarted.
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