US-Led Coalition Says 55 Militants Killed in Eastern Afghanistan
By VOA News
23 June 2008
The U.S. military says U.S.-led forces have killed about 55 militants, including three "key leaders," in fighting in southeastern Afghanistan.
A military statement issued Monday, says the fighting erupted in the Zerok district of Paktika province Friday, when Taliban militants ambushed coalition troops with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. The military says ground troops managed to fight off the militants with air support.
The military says 25 insurgents were wounded and three were detained in the operation near the Pakistani border.
Earlier today in the eastern province of Nangarhar province, hundreds of people blocked a road in Kogyani district to protest the alleged killing of a father and son by U.S.-led coalition forces.
The coalition denies killing civilians in the area and says its operation there is ongoing.
Afghan officials say the victims were killed when a coalition projectile hit their house. They say coalition forces had been pursuing militants suspected of planting a roadside bomb. They say at least one militant was killed.
Separately, a Taliban spokesman said today that militants killed 10 foreign soldiers in the same district. Coalition and Afghan officials have not commented on the report.
A U.S.-led invasion pushed the Taliban from power in 2001, but supporters of the extremist Islamist group remain a deadly threat to the tens of thousands of foreign forces that remain in Afghanistan.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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