KABUL, April 12: Afghan and coalition soldiers killed six insurgents in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday as they launched a new 2,500-troop operation with predawn air and ground strikes, the coalition said.

The insurgents were killed as part of Operation Mountain Lion in Kunar, where seven children were killed on Tuesday in a rocket attack blamed on militants.

“The operation began with predawn air-and-ground assaults on Wednesday in the Pech River Valley, an area notorious for terrorist activity,” the coalition said in a statement. It was a “comprehensive effort to kill, incapacitate or capture terrorists operating in the region” that would continue “as long as necessary,” it said.

OPIUM DESTROYED: An elite anti-narcotics commando unit destroyed tonnes of opium, killed a gunman and arrested seven people, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.—AFP