GARDEZ, April 11: Twelve suspected Taliban militants died on Monday in air strikes by US helicopter gunships and tankbuster jets in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said. Two members of the US-led coalition were also injured after fighting broke out on Monday in Paktia province. The battle began when insurgents fired a dozen rockets in a bid to kill a former Afghan military chief on a road between Kabul and Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, security commander Ghulam Nabi Salem said.
Kheyal Baaz Khan Sherzai, the ex-military commander of Khost province, survived the attack.
“But Afghan forces chased the attackers in the mountains and the fighting began. It lasted until late afternoon,” Mr Salem said.
US-led military air support was then called in, he added. Twelve insurgents were killed and their bodies were recovered by local troops and US-led forces.
“We recovered the bodies of 12 Taliban in Shiwak’s mountains,” Mr Salem said, referring to a mountainous district some 35 kilometers south of Gardez.
Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdul Latif Hakimi told the Afghan Islamic Press agency that the insurgents lost “only one fighter.”
In a phone call to the news agency he denied Afghan official claims that 12 militants had been killed.—AFP