Three dozen Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
17 hours ago

KABUL (AFP) — Air strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.

The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.

A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.

The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.

"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.

The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.

The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.

The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.

Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.

Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.

The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.

Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.

The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.

"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.

The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.

There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.

This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.

The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.

Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.

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