Taliban fighters are increasingly using civilians as human shields in the assault on the southern town of Marjah, an Afghan official said today as military squads resumed painstaking house-to-house searches in the Taliban stronghold.

Police in Afghanistan this morning discovered the body of a second South Korean hostage killed by the Taliban, officials said.

Afghan forces aided by NATO aircraft and artillery killed 71 suspected Taliban militants in running battles in southern Afghanistan that also left five Afghan troops dead in one of the bloodiest clashes since the 2001 US-led invasion.