US-led air raid kills 50 Taliban -Afghan official

KABUL, May 29 (Reuters) More than 50 Taliban guerrillas were killed in a US-led air strike on a mosque in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand today, a provincial official said.

Several ''Taliban leaders'' were among those killed in the pre-dawn attack in Kajaki district of province, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada, deputy provincial governor said. Spokesmen for the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan could not be contacted immediately for comment.

''The Taliban were meeting in a mosque when the bombardment took place,'' Akhundzada told Reuters by phone from Helmand. ''More than 50 of them have been killed.'' He did not have further details.

US-led forces could not be contacted immediately for comment and Akhundzada said a joint ground and air operation involving US-led and Afghan forces was going on in the district to hunt Taliban insurgents.

The news of the bombardment followed the launch of an ongoing operation by US-led troops against Taliban fighters in several parts of the south over the past two weeks.

Some 300 people -- most of them militants, but also civilians -- dozens of Afghan security forces and four foreign soldiers have been killed in the battles in a region that has been the focus of an insurgency since US-backed forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001.

Separately, five Canadian soldiers were wounded in a gunbattle today after their convoy was ambushed by Taliban guerrillas in neighbouring Kandahar province, a spokesman for the Canadian military said.

He suspected five assailants were killed in the encounter and said four of the wounded soldiers were in a stable condition.

The clash happened south of Kandahar, in a village from where 3,000 people have already fled because of fear of fighting.

REUTERS SHB PM1602