Thousands of Afghan villagers flee battle zone

KABUL, May 25 (Reuters) Some 3,000 Afghan villagers have been forced to flee their homes near a battleground fought over by U S-led troops and Taliban fighters, a refugee agency official said today.

The exodus represents one of the largest movements of people from a conflict zone in Afghanistan since U S-led troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001, said Rahilla Zafar, the International Organisation for Migration's spokeswoman in Kabul.

Dozens of Taliban insurgents and at least 17 civilians were killed during several days of fighting between militants and U S-led soldiers in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar.

The heaviest clashes came on Sunday and Monday, but there were more yesterday, and some 3,000 villagers in neighbouring Zare Dasht district fled to Kandahar city in case the fighting spilled over.

''Entire families, including children, women and men have fled after days of some of the heaviest fighting between Taliban and coalition forces,'' Zafar said.

Many of the families that moved were already living like refugees under canvas, having been rendered homeless by the years of conflict before the fall of the Taliban.

Displaced again, they have now pitched their tents under the baking summer sun in a dried-out gully in Kandahar, she added.

Villagers from Panjwai said their homes had come under attack from aircraft after Taliban fighters had taken up positions in their mud-walled compounds and fired on coalition troops.

The U S military said the warplanes used ''precision fire'' to strike at the Taliban fighters.

''AVOID HURTING CIVILIANS'', U S TOLD President Hamid Karzai summoned Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of U S forces in Afghanistan, to urge him to take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in a series of battles, ambushes and bombings since last week, according to the U S military and Afghan officials.

That is more than the number reported killed in Iraq during the same period. It is the worst spell of violence since the Taliban fell in 2001.

Most of the dead were militants but dozens of Afghan police, soldiers and civilians have also been killed, along with four foreign soldiers, according to Afghan and U S-led forces.

The Taliban insurgency is concentrated in the country's south and east.

Reuters PR DB1837