Two UK troops, over 30 Afghan Taliban killed-military

KABUL, Sep 9 (Reuters) Two British soldiers and more than 30 Taliban guerrillas were killed in separate incidents in southern Afghanistan, the British and US military said, the latest clashes in a raging insurgency.

In another incident in the same restive southern province of Helmand yesterday, an Afghan employee of a US security firm was killed and three others were wounded in a suicide bomb attack, the Interior Ministry said today.

The British soldiers were killed while taking part in a pre-dawn operation yesterday to disrupt the Taliban in Helmand when their patrol came under attack, Britain's Ministry of Defence said.

Two other British troops were seriously wounded and several insurgents were killed, it added.

Afghan and US-led coalition forces backed by air strikes meanwhile killed more than 30 Taliban fighters in a separate clash in Helmand yesterday and destroyed a large cache of weaponry, the US military said.

''Afghan and Coalition forces found large weapons caches in three buildings and smaller caches in other buildings. The caches included rockets, anti-tank rockets, and an improvised explosive device, all of which were destroyed by a coalition airstrike,'' it said in a statement.

''During the course of operations, the combined force also returned small-arms fire and employed precision munitions on locations where suspected militants were hiding. Forces estimate more than 30 suspected militants were killed in the engagement.'' There were no independent accounts of how many people were killed or what happened.

The Taliban were not immediately available for comment.

The US-led military says coalition forces have killed hundreds of Taliban militants in a spree of confrontations in recent weeks. The Taliban have admitted some losses, but say Afghan and foreign troops vastly exaggerate enemy death tolls.

More than 7,000 people have been killed during the past 19 months in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since the resurgent Taliban's overthrow in 2001.

REUTERS RS AS1156