KABUL, Aug 7: Eight suspected Taliban militants were killed and three captured as Afghan and US-led troops raided their hideouts in Afghanistan, an official said on Sunday. The raids by Afghan security forces, supported by US-led coalition, were conducted on Saturday in the Shar-i-Safa district of Zabul province, said local police commander Ghulam Rasoul Aka.

“During the operation we killed eight Taliban and captured three others,” he said. At least one policeman was wounded in the day-long gunbattle, he added. One Afghan policeman was killed and another wounded on Saturday when militants attacked a police checkpoint in Wardak, said interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal.

The US-led military said it detained a suspected suicide bomber near their base in Salerno near Pakistan border as he tried to detonate a series of explosives attached to his body. In another encounter on Saturday Afghan troops killed a regional Taliban commander and captured six others in the Charchino district of Uruzgan, the defence ministry said on Sunday.

The man identified as Mullah Abdul Qader was killed when troops raided militants’ hideouts, it said. Also on Saturday Afghan troops killed an “enemy combatant” in Qalat city.—AFP