Up to 60 Taliban rebels killed in battle

AMERICAN warplanes pounded a suspected Taliban safe haven in the mountainsides of southern Afghanistan in an assault that left up to 60 insurgents, five policemen and seven Afghan soldiers dead and five US soldiers wounded, officials said.

Two American CH-47 helicopters were damaged during 11 hours of fighting on Tuesday at a rebel “safe haven,” a US military statement said. One made an emergency landing before it was repaired, while the other managed to fly back to a nearby coalition base.

US military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O’Hara said about 40 rebels had been killed, but General Salim Khan, commander of about 400 Afghan policemen who also took part in the fighting, said his men had recovered the bodies of 60 suspected insurgents. Some 30 militants were captured he said.

Mr Khan said that in addition to the five dead Afghan police officers, three were also injured in the gun battle on the border between the southern provinces of Kandahar and Zabul. Beside the seven Afghan soldiers killed, three were wounded.

“There are hundreds of Taliban in camps in the mountains. My officers have been spotting them and then the information is used by the American aircraft to bomb them,” Mr Khan said. “Many of the rebels have started to flee the area.”

The names of the US wounded were withheld pending notification of their families.

Suspected Taliban rebels also attacked Afghan soldiers in the neighbouring district of Mizan yesterday and an ensuing firefight left three of the troops and three insurgents wounded, said local official Rahmatullah Khan.

Three months of bloodshed across the south and east has left hundreds dead and sparked fears that the Afghan war is widening, rather than winding down.

US and Afghan officials warn that things could get worse ahead of landmark parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

About 340 suspected rebels and 29 US troops have been killed since March, according to Afghan and US officials.