27 Taliban militants reported killed in western fighting

Afghanistan's military said 27 insurgents were been killed in ground fighting and air-strikes in a western province today, in what appeared to be a major blow to Taliban influence in the region, while four civilians died in a NATO airstrike in the south.

NATO and Afghan forces launched an operation western Badghis province before dawn, with troops parachuting behind Taliban lines to trap the militants, the regional Afghan corps commander Gen.Jalandar Shah Behnam said. Fighting continued well into today afternoon, he said.

In addition to the 27 Taliban bodies collected, one Afghan soldier was killed and five wounded, he said. One US soldier was reported wounded.

There was no immediate comment on the fighting from NATO command in Kabul, but Behnam described the targeted area
as one that had emerged as a Taliban stronghold in the past
three years, from where the militants fired at supply aircraft
and kidnapped members of Afghan and foreign engineering teams.

It lies on a key highway connecting several provinces in the
country's west and northwest.

"This had been a serious threat against our forces," Behnam said, vowing that operations would continue to clear the area of Taliban. "The removal of the opposition from this area is very important to us." 

The general said no civilians had been killed or injured in the offensive, which focused on a sparsely populated area about 300 kilometers from the capital Kabul. 

In recent years, the insurgents have expanded their reach beyond their strongholds in the east and south of the country although those regions remain the focus of much of the fighting in the country.

A NATO airstrike on a residence in the southern province of Helmand killed four insurgents and four civilians two women, an elderly man and a child, an Afghan official and the military alliance said today.