Agence France-Presse,
KABUL (AFP): More than 100 insurgents were killed Tuesday in a battle in southern Afghanistan in which fighter aircraft destroyed several rebel positions, the US-led coalition said.
An Afghan security forces member was also killed and three international troops wounded in the fighting that erupted in the southern province of Kandahar when a large group of insurgents ambushed a military patrol, it said.
The battle started in the morning and continued deep into the night, the coalition said in a statement. Afghan and coalition forces “engaged and eliminated more than 100 insurgent fighters,” it said.
Kandahar is the birthplace of the extremist Taliban movement, which was in government between 1996 and 2001 and is now waging an intense Al-Qaeda-linked insurgency against the US-backed government.
The soldiers were attacked from several positions with small guns, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The insurgents were continually reinforced.
Air support targeted rebel positions on a hilltop, sniper posts as well as two trucks used to re-supply the attacks, the statement said.
An Afghan security force member was killed and three wounded. Three coalition soldiers were also wounded.
