KABUL, Sept 9: NATO-led troops in a major offensive in southern Afghanistan have killed about 60 insurgents in hours, officials said. The offensive, Medusa, has used air power, artillery and ground troops. It was launched a week ago to drive militants out of a stronghold in Kandahar.

“Later in the morning ISAF lost one soldier killed in action,” the alliance said in a statement.

Afghan and NATO forces also destroyed “three insurgent positions, a bomb-making factory and a weapons cache,” the statement said.

“We are engaging with everything from direct fire to artillery and air strikes,” an official with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, announcing the latest deaths.

The number of militants killed in Operation Medusa has now risen to more than 360. Five Canadian soldiers have also been killed, one by accident in friendly fire.

Fourteen British airmen died on the first day of the operation when their reconnaissance plane crashed in the Panjwayi area due to a technical fault.

Meanwhile police in Qalat, the capital city of Zabul province, said they had foiled an attempt to detonate a car bomb by seizing the vehicle.

The militants also attacked a border post in the eastern province of Khost on Friday.

One Taliban body was left at the site after an hour-long battle but blood-stained turbans and Afghan caps, called “pakols”, littered the site, indicating the militants had suffered several casualties, a border police commander said.—AFP