19 militants dead in latest Afghan clash

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 13: Nineteen suspected Taliban have been killed in an air strike by U S -led troops in Afghanistan, a provincial official said, the latest clash in an offensive aimed at pushing back a revitalised insurgency.

The bombing was in Nawzad district of the southern province of Helmand yesterday. U S, British and Canadian troops, along with Afghan forces, are in the province battling the most intense phase of Taliban violence since 2001.

Aircraft from the U S-led coalition force were called in after militants ambushed an Afghan government convoy, killing two policemen, said Mahaiuddin, a spokesman for the province's governor.

''Twelve Taliban were killed in one area and seven in another.

Many of them were wounded in the bombing,'' Mahaiuddin said today.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led force confirmed fighting had taken place in the district but said he had no information on casualties.

Taliban spokesmen could not be contacted for comment but they often deny coalition and Afghan government reports of their losses.

The surge in Taliban attacks across the Afghan south comes as a NATO peacekeeping force is preparing to take over security responsibilities from the U S coalition force.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Afghan violence this year. Thousands of villagers have been displaced.

Most of the dead have been Taliban, according to U S and Afghan officials.

More than 60 foreign troops have been killed this year, including 11 in Helmand since mid-May.

Helmand is Afghanistan's main opium-growing province and the Taliban and their drug-gang allies have held sway across most of its deserts, mountains and fertile valleys for years.

NATO peacekeeping troops, the majority from Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, are due to take over in Helmand and five other southern provinces on July 31.

The surge in attacks by the Taliban, who officials say are thriving on drug money and help from militant networks in Pakistan, has raised fears the troops will be doing more fighting than peacekeeping.

The NATO deployment should let the United States, stretched by the war in Iraq, trim its Afghan force of about 22,000.

In a separate incident, a bomb on a bicycle blew up in the heart of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing a passer-by and wounding several people, residents said.

The Afghan north and west, and the capital Kabul, have been generally peaceful since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 but attacks have been increasing this year.

Several small bombs went off in Kabul last week. Police said today they arrested a man trying to plant a bomb near the Information Ministry.

Earlier, police said they had arrested six Taliban on suspicion of responsibility for last week's blasts in Kabul that killed one person and wounded nearly 50.

Grenades, remote-control bombs and other explosives were found when the six were seized at a room in a market, not far from President Hamid Karzai's heavily guarded compound.

REUTERS