US, Afghan troops kill 10 Taliban in Afghan clash

KABUL, July 15 (Reuters) US-led and Afghan government troops killed 10 Taliban insurgents in an attack today, the latest clash in the bloodiest phase of violence in Afghanistan since 2001.

US-led coalition troops have responded to a resurgent Taliban across the south with a heavy offensive before a NATO peacekeeping force takes over at the end of the month.

''Coalition forces, supported by Afghan and coalition ground forces, conducted a night-time air assault into Sangin and killed 10 enemy extremists,'' the U.S.-led force said in a statement.

Sangin in a district in the southern province of Helmand where US, British and Canadian troops, along with Afghan forces, are battling the Taliban and their drug-gang allies.

Today's attack was part of a coalition offensive codenamed Mountain Thrust, aimed at rooting the Taliban out of the south.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Afghan violence this year, most of them Taliban, according to US and Afghan figures. More than 60 foreign troops have been killed, including 11 in Helmand in the past two months.

Civilians have also been caught up in the fighting.

The US-led coalition said it had no information to confirm reports civilians had been killed in air strikes in Helmand on Wednesday.

Nineteen suspected Taliban were killed in an air strike called in by British forces in Nawzad district during an attack by Taliban, the provincial government said.

Several residents of the district said civilians had also been killed in the bombing.

''Coalition air support was used in the operation to target extremists but there is no reason to believe at this time that these targets were anything other than buildings used by enemy forces,'' the coalition force said.

President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation into reports civilians were killed in a coalition air attack in neighbouring Uruzgan province last Monday.

The US military said 40 insurgents were killed in that attack and there had been no reports of civilian casualties. Villagers and a member of parliament said civilians had been killed.

Civilian casualties are sensitive for Karzai and foreign troops.

Resentment of both the President and foreign forces is simmering.

Nearly five years after the Taliban were ousted the insurgency is raging in the south and east, and many people across the country say their lives are no better.

REUTERS AK KN1756