KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) — Between 50 and 70 Taliban-linked militants were killed Sunday in air strikes by international forces in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, a provincial governor said.
The past weeks have seen a spike in insurgent activity, including several bloody suicide attacks, with several military operations under way across the war-wracked country to fight back the extremists.
On Sunday, international troops were called in to help police fight back an attack by militants in Khost province who killed two policemen as they headed for Spera district centre, provincial governor Arsala Jamal told AFP.
"Taliban attacked one of our police posts. As they retreated, international military air forces came in and bombed them. Fifty to 70 Taliban have been killed," Jamal said.
"They had killed one policeman in the initial attack and had captured another officer who was later beheaded."
The governor said he had video footage of the rebels being killed in the strikes near the border.
"I can say with responsibility that 50 to 70 Taliban have been killed. We have video showing they were killed," he said, when asked how he knew how many had died.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed there had been action in the area but said it was too early to give details.
"We have reports of a huge number of insurgents killed but we are still doing battle damage assessment," an ISAF media officer told AFP.
The rebels were able to get "very close" to the district headquarters in Spera, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the border with Pakistan, before the air forces arrived, the governor said.
The air strikes were later halted to avoid civilian casualties after the militants moved into villages, he said.
"We could have killed more Taliban if they had not entered the villages. Those of them killed were targeted while massing in an area outside the villages," he said.
The Taliban, an Islamic militant group leading an insurgency against the Afghan government which is backed by about 70,000 international troops, were in government between 1996 and 2001.
They were ousted from government in a US-led attack in late 2001 launched after they refused to hand over their Al-Qaeda ally Osama Bin Laden, accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks.
In their bid to take back power, they have captured various remote and small district headquarters but have most often been expelled fairly easily by the international military forces on which the Afghan government relies.
Dozens of Taliban stormed into the Ajirstan district about 200 kilometres southwest of Kabul on Monday.
ISAF and Afghan security forces launched an operation on Wednesday to take it back, saying that about 55 militants were killed. The district was again under Afghan control, the ISAF media office told AFP Sunday.
The US-led coalition, which operates alongside ISAF and the Afghan forces, said Sunday it had killed several militants in Paktia province which adjoins Khost.
The operation was targeted at the extremist Haqqani network of rebels which is allied with the Taliban and has carried several high-profile attacks in Afghanistan.
The group is named after Jalaluddin Haqqani, a well-known commander during the resistance to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s.
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