30 militants killed in southern Afghanistan

Coalition and Afghan forces today killed an estimated 30 extremists in a raid on a hide-out in southern Afghanistan, the military said.

Coalition aircraft destroyed a helicopter damaged in an emergency landing during the operation.

The firefight came a day after a US warplane bombed another militant hide-out in southern Afghanistan, killing more than 40 Taliban fighters, the military claimed. Wounded Afghans from yesterday’s raid claimed children and women were killed.

The renewed violence came as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul, for talks with President Hamid Karzai on the escalating violence.

More than 700 people, mostly militants, have died since mid-May in the deadliest spate of violence since the Taliban’s fall in late 2001.

Today’s raid took place in Sangin village in the volatile Helmand province, where more than 3,000 Nato-led British troops have been deploying to take over security control from US forces.

A coalition statement said troops were tipped off on the location of the militant hide-out after interviewing detained fighters.

“While conducting the raid at the hideout location, Afghan and coalition forces killed enemy fighters,” aid the statement. The military estimated that 30 militants died, but it did not explain how it came to that figure.

Coalition forces also discovered a large weapons cache in the Helmand hideout and destroyed it.

As the troops left the area, a malfunctioning helicopter was damaged “beyond repair” in an emergency landing and destroyed by a coalition airstrike. No coalition or Afghan forces were hurt.

The raid was conducted as part of Operation Mountain Thrust, a large-scale anti-Taliban offensive across southern Afghanistan involving more than 10,000 US-led troops.

Yesterday, a US war plane dropped four 500-pound bombs on what the military said was a militant hideout in southern Uruzgan province’s capital of Tirin Kot. More than 40 extremists were killed, the military claimed.

But eyewitnesses, including an Afghan woman suffering face and leg injuries, said at least four civilians were killed and wounded and homes destroyed by at least two helicopter gunships that fired on the town.