50 Taliban militants killed in Afghan clashes

Afghan police and US-led coalition forces killed more than 50 Taliban militants in fighting in southern Afghanistan, the government said yesterday.
The Islamist "terrorists" were killed in clashes in the volatile Charchino district of Uruzgan province over the past 24 hours, the interior ministry said in a statement.
There were no casualties to Afghan and US forces, the government said.
The operation involved ground and air attacks, Uruzgan police chief Juma Gul Himat said.
Separately a Taliban commander and four of his guards were killed in a police operation in Deh Rawood district of the same province on Tuesday, said the statement.
In another operation in Kandahar province yesterday also cost the lives of two Canadian troops and their interpreter, as well as an Afghan soldier, in deaths that have already been announced.
The Nato-led soldiers used gunship helicopters in the fighting in the Zahri district, 30 kilometres west of Kandahar city, Saqeb said.
However, a Canadian military spokeswoman, Captain Catherine Larose, said two Canadian men killed in a bomb blast yesterday with their interpreter were among the troops involved.
Dozens of Afghan and international troops moved into action in Zhari after Taliban attacks in the same area Friday killed two newly married women and a child and, separately, four policemen.
Yousuf Ahmadi, the chief spokesman for the insurgent Taliban movement, said only four Taliban had been killed but dozens of soldiers and civilians had died in the fighting.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were toppled by an international coalition for harbouring Al-Qaeda. Their insurgency, now gaining pace, is stretching into a sixth year.
Critics say the war in Iraq has diverted world attention from Afghanistan, allowing the rebels to regroup.
In another in a stream of attacks, a suicide bomber blew himself up near an ISAF vehicle in Helmand's Gereshk area, Andiwal said.
There were no other casualties, and ISAF could not immediately confirm the attack.
Separately, a bomb near Gereshk bazaar Saturday killed a civilian, Andiwal said.