Afghan clash 'kills 60 Taleban'

Sixty suspected Taleban militants and five Afghan security personnel have died in a major clash in the south, a top Afghan military commander says.

The fighting took place in Uruzgan province late on Tuesday, Gen Rahmatullah Raufi told reporters.

The US military in Afghanistan has confirmed the incident, but says only 24 militants have been killed.

Separately, a UK spokesman says a British aircraft has been involved in an incident in Helmand province.

No details are available but reports say an aircraft is on fire in the airstrip at the provincial capital, Lashkargah. A BBC correspondent says he can see a huge plume of black smoke from the site.

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Afghanistan

US-led coalition forces and Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were involved in the fighting in Uruzgan which took place near the provincial capital Tirin Kot.

Officials say the clash began when a joint ANA and coalition patrol came under attack.

Four Afghan soldiers and an Afghan policemen were killed in the fighting, which also left three soldiers and three policemen injured.

"We launched a massive search and clean-up operation after the attack in which our troops spotted and killed 60 Taleban," Gen Raufi, who commands Afghan forces in the south, is quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

Civilians deaths

There has been a dramatic upsurge in fighting in southern Afghanistan over the past week.

There's no doubt that the Taleban have grown in strength and influence Col Tom Collins US military spokesman

Officials estimate more than 200 rebels have been killed in the region since last Wednesday, in some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of the Taleban in late 2001.

"There's no doubt that the Taleban have grown in strength and influence in certain areas in Kandahar, Helmand and in southern Uruzgan," US military spokesman Col Tom Collins said on Wednesday.

On Monday, the US military said it may have killed up to 80 Taleban in a bombing raid.

But the air strikes in Helmand province also killed 16 civilians, local officials said.

US-led coalition forces targeted Taleban fighters in a village in Kandahar province many of whom were said to have taken up positions in an Islamic religious school and people's homes.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is to summon the head of US-led coalition forces for a "full explanation" of the raid.

The US military spokesman in Kabul has defended the military strike saying they did not want "this to happen".

"The ultimate cause of why civilians were injured and killed is because the Taleban knowingly, wilfully chose to occupy homes of these people," Col Tom Collins told journalists.

"We do everything we can to prevent killing civilians."