Up to 50 Taliban insurgents were killed in a clash in western Afghanistan after the rebels killed 10 soldiers in the region, officials said Sunday.Militants ambushed a convoy of the UN World Food Programme in Bala Bulok district of western Farah province on Saturday, provincial governor Ruh-ul-Amin said.
The ambush with roadside bombs and assault weapons killed three US soldiers and seven Afghan army soldiers accompanying the convoy. The coalition forces retaliated with airstrikes, killing up to 50 insurgents, the governor said. Regional army spokesman Abdul Basir Ghori also said around 50 insurgents were killed by in the four-hour combat. "The area is under the Taliban control, so we cannot say if there were Taliban commanders among those killed."
Ghori said seven Afghan army soldiers were killed and 12 others were wounded in the attack. Two teenage girls were killed and a woman and another girl were wounded when a rocket fired by Taliban militants landed at a home in Spin Masjid area of Bala Bulok district, Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, spokesman for police forces in the western region, said. Also on Saturday, four Taliban fighters were killed in the south-eastern province of Paktia, a defence ministry statement said Sunday.
Taliban militants, who ruled Afghanistan for more than five years before their government was toppled by a US-led military invasion, are most active in southern and eastern regions. The militants seem to have also recently expanded their activity to western and northern provinces. A London-based think tank said on Friday that Taliban militants have permanent presence in 80 per cent of Afghanistan, while they conduct "substantial" activities in another 17 per cent of the country.
More than 100,000 international soldiers, two-thirds of them US troops, are currently stationed in Afghanistan. Following the deployment of more than 20,000 extra troops this year, the US government is expected to send additional forces to Afghanistan in the hope of reversing recent gains made by Taliban.