US helicopter gunships killed up to 21 Taleban guerrillas trying to flee a joint US-Afghan assault in the southern province of Kandahar at the weekend, Afghan police said on Sunday.
A local Taleban commander said that the guerrillas suffered up to 10 killed in the attack in the Maruf district of Kandahar on Saturday.
"The Taleban were holed up in the village of Mooli with US and Afghan forces besieging them," Salim Khan, the deputy police chief of Kandahar, told Reuters. "When they tried to flee, the US gunships opened fire on them and 21 were killed."
A spokeswoman for the US military said more than 15 guerrillas were killed in the attack involving US Apache helicopters early on Saturday.
The Taleban deaths came on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, which prompted US forces to overthrow the Taleban in Afghanistan for failing to hand over Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders.
On Saturday, the US military dismissed a video claim by al Qaeda that its forces in Afghanistan were "hiding in their trenches" as a desperate attempt to disrupt Afghan presidential elections due to be held on October 9.