A policeman and seven Taliban rebels were killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan, including a foreign airstrike that also wounded two civilians, officials said Wednesday. International forces' warplanes dropped bombs on a group of Taliban militants travelling by motorcycle overnight, killing three insurgents, said deputy governor of Zabul province, Gulab Shah Alikhail.
A civilian woman and a child from a nomadic tribe who had pitched their tents nearby were injured in the strike, Alikhail told AFP. Nato-led forces fighting a Taliban-led insurgency here said they were not immediately aware of the bombing, while officials from the separate US-led coalition were unavailable for comment.
Hours earlier, an Afghan policeman and four Taliban militants died in a gunbattle after rebels attacked a patrol in the troubled neighbouring province of Helmand, a police commander said.
The hour-long fight erupted late Tuesday, provincial police commander Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told AFP. "Four Taliban and a police officer were killed after fighting broke out following the Taliban attack on our patrol" in Marja district, Andiwal said, adding that two policemen were wounded.
The latest incidents brought the death toll from violence on Tuesday to more than 40 people, including 17 civilian construction workers and a Nato-led soldier, making it one of Afghanistan's deadliest days in months.