Troops kill 10 Taliban in Afghan clash

KABUL (Reuters) – U.S.-led and Afghan government troops
killed 10 Taliban insurgents in an attack on Saturday, the
latest clash in the bloodiest phase of violence in Afghanistan
since 2001.

U.S.-led coalition troops have responded to a resurgent
Taliban across the south with a heavy offensive before a NATO
peacekeeping force takes over at the end of the month.

“Coalition forces, supported by Afghan and coalition ground
forces, conducted a night-time air assault into Sangin and
killed 10 enemy extremists,” the U.S.-led force said in a
statement.

Sangin in a district in the southern province of Helmand
where U.S., British and Canadian troops, along with Afghan
forces, are battling the Taliban and their drug-gang allies.

Saturday’s attack was part of a coalition offensive
codenamed Mountain Thrust, aimed at rooting the Taliban out of
the south.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Afghan violence
this year, most of them Taliban, according to U.S. and Afghan
figures. More than 60 foreign troops have been killed,
including 11 in Helmand in the past two months.

Civilians have also been caught up in the fighting.

The U.S.-led coalition said it had no information to
confirm reports civilians had been killed in air strikes in
Helmand on Wednesday.

Nineteen suspected Taliban were killed in an air strike
called in by British forces in Nawzad district during an attack
by Taliban, the provincial government said.

Several residents of the district said civilians had also
been killed in the bombing.

“Coalition air support was used in the operation to target
extremists but there is no reason to believe at this time that
these targets were anything other than buildings used by enemy
forces,” the coalition force said.

President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation into
reports civilians were killed in a coalition air attack in
neighboring Uruzgan province last Monday.

The U.S. military said 40 insurgents were killed in that
attack and there had been no reports of civilian casualties.
Villagers and a member of parliament said civilians had been
killed.

Civilian casualties are sensitive for Karzai and foreign
troops.

Resentment of both the president and foreign forces is
simmering. Nearly five years after the Taliban were ousted the
insurgency is raging in the south and east, and many people
across the country say their lives are no better.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Afghan)