US-led air raid kills 50 Taliban: Afghan official

KABUL (Reuters) – More than 50 Taliban guerrillas were
killed in a U.S.-led air strike on a mosque in Afghanistan’s
southern province of Helmand on Monday, a provincial official
said.

Several “Taliban leaders” were among those killed in the
pre-dawn attack in Kajaki district of province, Amir Mohammad
Akhundzada, deputy provincial governor said. Spokesmen for the
U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan could not be contacted
immediately for comment.

“The Taliban were meeting in a mosque when the bombardment
took place,” Akhundzada told Reuters by phone from Helmand.
“More than 50 of them have been killed.”

He did not have further details.

U.S.-led forces could not be contacted immediately for
comment and Akhundzada said a joint ground and air operation
involving U.S.-led and Afghan forces was going on in the
district to hunt Taliban insurgents.

The news of the bombardment followed the launch of an
ongoing operation by U.S.-led troops against Taliban fighters
in several parts of the south over the past two weeks.

Some 300 people — most of them militants, but also
civilians — dozens of Afghan security forces and four foreign
soldiers have been killed in the battles in a region that has
been the focus of an insurgency since U.S.-backed forces ousted
the Taliban in late 2001.

Separately, five Canadian soldiers were wounded in a
gunbattle on Monday after their convoy was ambushed by Taliban
guerrillas in neighboring Kandahar province, a spokesman for
the Canadian military said.

He suspected five assailants were killed in the encounter
and said four of the wounded soldiers were in a stable
condition.

The clash happened south of Kandahar, in a village from
where 3,000 people have already fled because of fear of
fighting.