At least 40 militants and two Afghan soldiers were killed overnight in a raid by United States and Afghan troops on a Taliban hideout in southcentral Afghanistan, an Afghan official said on Tuesday.
The clash took place in Uruzgan, the province where one US soldier was killed on Monday in heavy fighting that also left an Afghan serviceman and 11 insurgents dead.
”In this operation between 40 to 50 Taliban were killed, two Afghan soldiers were killed, and we have arrested more than 25 people since the beginning of the operation,” said provincial governor Jan Mohammed Khan.
Between 15 and 30 insurgents fired on a US-Afghan patrol with guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, also wounding three American troops and an Afghan soldier, he said.
Violence has escalated ahead of Afghanistan’s September 18 parliamentary elections, and the second US troop death in two days Monday raised the American toll from hostile fire to 38 this year.
The latest clash came after fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar apparently called on supporters to unite and fight Afghan and foreign troops in an unverified audio tape address to insurgents released on Monday.
”Get united, put aside your differences, continue jihad [holy war] against the invaders, and you will be victorious,” a man purported to be the one-eyed Taliban leader was heard saying on the tape obtained by AFP. – Sapa-AFP