A senior Taliban commander involved in the abduction of 23 South Korean missionaries was among dozens of insurgents killed in clashes in southern Afghanistan overnight, police said on Tuesday.
Ali Shah Ahmadzai, police chief of Ghazni province, said Taliban commander Mullah Mateen was among 22 insurgents killed in a clash in the province's Qarabagh district. "He was involved in the kidnapping. We have reconnaissance colleagues on the ground," Ahmadzai told Reuters by telephone from Ghazni.
However the US military said it was not yet clear whether any hostage-takers were among "several" insurgents killed in Qarabagh. It said a dozen militants had been killed in a separate battle in the southern province of Kandahar overnight, while officials said three policemen had been killed in two separate suicide blasts in the south on Tuesday.
"The fighters targeted in this morning's operation in Ghazni were involved in anti-coalition militant activities. Whether or not they were involved in the hostage situation has yet to be determined decisively," a US military spokesman said.
The clashes were the latest in a rash of confrontations in the Taliban-dominated south in recent weeks. The Taliban concede some losses, but say the reported toll is a lie. In a separate incident, the government said two officials from the ministry of rural development were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen on Monday in the south-western province of Nimroz.