KABUL, June 19: United States warplanes killed 15 to 20 suspected Taliban in southern Afghanistan in the latest attack in a renewed wave of violence to hit the country, the US military said on Sunday.

The rebels were killed when US-led troops came under small arms and rocket fire from militants and called in aircraft and attack helicopters in the province of Helmand, the military said in a statement.

“US aircraft and attack helicopters engaged the enemy. Initial battle-damage assessments indicate 15 to 20 men died,” it added

A vehicle belonging to the attackers was also damaged in the attack, the statement said.

The statement said no US-led coalition soldiers were injured in the fighting in Grishk, a district in insurgency-wracked Helmand province, which has been hit by a renewed surge of violence by militants in recent months.

In southeastern Afghanistan, a suspected roadside bomb tore through a UN car carrying Afghan electoral workers, damaging the vehicle but causing no casualties, police said Sunday.

None of the five passengers on board the UN-marked vehicle were wounded when the bomb was detonated by a remote control device in Ali Shir area of Khost province, Mohammad Ayoob, police commander of the province said.

A day earlier suspected Taliban militants ambushed and killed a judge and two other officials in an ambush as they returned home from a dinner in the Nad Ali district to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand.

“As they were coming from a dinner party they were ambushed and killed on their way back to Lashkar Gah,” provincial security chief Amanullah told AFP. He blamed the attack on the Taliban.

Taliban militants claimed on Sunday to have executed a district police chief, who was among 13 hostages seized in a daring raid on a district government headquarters in southern Afghanistan, the rebel spokesman said.