Taliban militant numbers reduced by allied troops

Kyrgyzstan News.Net
Wednesday 27th August, 2008

Nearly 80 suspected Taliban militants were killed in coalition airstrikes and clashes with Afghan forces, while four Afghan policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern region on Wednesday.

More than 40 suspected Taliban militants were killed in Sarobi district of southeastern province of Paktika after the militants ambushed a police patrol in the area.

Five policemen were wounded and the ground forces called coalition airstrikes on the Taliban near the border with Pakistan.

Another group of Taliban fighters attacked a police patrol in Kheshawand district of the same Paktika province Wednesday morning, wounding a policeman.

Police forces fought back and killed eight suspected militants.

In a separate incident, Taliban militants attacked a police post in Nad Ali district in southern Helmand province but suffered 18 fatalities.

A suicide bomber attacked near a British military base in Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province, killing himself and wounding three civilians.

British troops were not in the area when the explosion occurred.

Separately, US-led coalition forces claimed Wednesday to have killed more than a dozen Taliban insurgents in volatile southern Afghanistan, while another four were detained by the combined forces elsewhere.

The troops engaged the militants with small arms, machine guns, and close air support, killing more than a dozen militants.

No Afghan or coalition soldiers were hurt in the incident.

In another incident, four police personnel were also killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Gilan district of southern Ghazni province.

Afghan and US officials have accused the Taliban of having bases inside Pakistan, from where they cross the border and stage attacks on Afghan and international forces.

More than 3,500 people - mostly insurgents - have been killed in violence in Afghanistan so far this year, according to figures provided by Afghan and foreign military sources.

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