KABUL, Jan 11: Forces led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) unleashed air and ground strikes on a group of ‘insurgents’ spotted infiltrating into Afghanistan from Pakistan, killing up to 150 of them, officials said on Thursday.

The men were seen gathering on the Pakistan side of the border and crossing into the eastern province of Paktika in two large groups, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said.

They were “monitored, tracked and subsequently engaged in Afghanistan, through the coordinated use of both air and ground fire in a series of engagements,” it said in a statement.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP that Nato bombed the insurgents just two kilometres from the Pakistan border in Barmal district. Afghan ground forces also attacked, he said.

“Initial battle damage estimates indicate that as many as 150 insurgents were killed,” Isaf's statement said.

The Afghan defence ministry put the toll at around 80. One man was arrested and a large number of guns and ammunition confiscated, a ministry statement said.

Parts of enemy bodies littered the scene of the attack and a trail of blood could be seen going towards the border, it said, adding that there was no injury to Afghan forces.

The Isaf said Pakistani military liaison officers were kept fully informed throughout the operation.

Purported Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, however, denied that the movement's fighters were involved and claimed the dead were all civilians.The strikes came as Afghan, Pakistani and Isaf commanders met in Islamabad to coordinate efforts against insurgents fighting for the Taliban movement driven from power in Kabul in late 2001.

The insurgent death toll is one of the highest in a strike in the nearly five-year campaign against the Taliban and their allies, including Al-Qaeda. The Isaf headquarters in Kabul said the force had a “variety of means” with which it observed movements across the border.

“These people were observed, they gathered, they moved across the border clearly intent on conducting an attack somewhere in Afghanistan,” Major Ian Clooney told AFP. “The attacks from our side used a mixture of ground fire and air-delivered weaponry,” including bombs, he said.

In a separate incident, police in the southern province of Helmand, where thousands of British troops are based, said nine Taliban militants were killed in an operation by Afghan and Nato troops on Wednesday in the Girishk district.

The border strike was ordered amid a row between Afghan and Pakistani officials about the movements across the border of Taliban-linked militants waging the insurgency.—AFP