KANDAHAR, June 23: Afghan and US forces have killed 132 Taliban militants and surrounded four of the ousted regime’s top commanders after a three-day battle in the south of the country, officials said on Thursday.

The brother-in-law of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is one of the key figures under siege in a mountain hideout, the Afghan defence ministry said. The claim could not be independently confirmed.

‘One-hundred-and-thirty-two Taliban were killed’ in the operation in a restive area on the borders of Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces, defence ministry spokesman Mohammed Numan Atifie told AFP.

“If you look at the number of the men they’ve lost we can say that their backbone is broken,” Atifie added. “It has been a great, great success for the government.”

Thirty-two rebels were killed when the offensive began early Tuesday and a further 100 insurgents were killed later on Tuesday and in the early hours of Wednesday morning in Mian Nisheen district, the spokesman said. Six foreign fighters were among the dead, Kandahar police chief General Mohammed Salem told AFP.

“They have found two Chechen nationals, three Pakistanis, and one Arab,” Salem added saying that 10 Taliban fighters including a Pakistani national were captured alive on Thursday.—AFP