40 killed in Afghan violence

Afghan and Nato forces killed more than 40 insurgents in a joint air and ground battle in southern Afghanistan, a security official said Sunday. Separately, two soldiers from the US-led coalition died after hitting a roadside bomb. Troops seized dozens of weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns after Saturday's battle in Dihrawud, a district in Uruzgan province, the Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement. It said many militants were killed, including a commander, but provided no figures.
An official at the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release details about the battle, put the number of dead at more than 40 .
Also Saturday, US-led coalition troops hit a roadside bomb in Kandahar province as they were conducting a security patrol with Afghan troops, the coalition said in a statement. Two soldiers died, it said, without releasing their nationalities.
With the latest casualties, 32 troops out of nearly 70,000 mostly Western soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the start of the year.
More than 220 civilians have also been killed, with rebels executing a series of deadly suicide bombings this year.
In another incident, police in the southern province of Zabul killed four rebels last Saturday, a police commander said.
Afghanistan on Thursday marked the start of spring, which is also the traditional fighting season in this mountainous Central Asian country.
Last year was the deadliest of the insurgency launched after the Taliban were able to regroup following their ouster in a US-led campaign in late 2001 when they did not hand over al-Qaeda leaders for the September 11 attacks.