Troops 'kill 37 Afghan Taleban'

The Afghan army says its troops were involved in the fighting

Afghan and US-led forces have killed up to 37 suspected Taleban fighters in central and southern areas since Sunday, a top Afghan general has said.

Gen Rahmatullah Raufi, the Afghan army commander in the south, said a relative of fugitive Taleban leader Mullah Omar may also have been killed.

There has been no confirmation of the clashes by coalition forces.

An upsurge in violence in southern and central Afghanistan in the past few months has left hundreds dead.

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Gen Raufi said the militants had been killed in three separate battles.

The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Kabul says that number of clashes in just 24 hours gives an idea of the scale of the fighting in the country.

US-led coalition troops, including Canadian and British soldiers, have been involved in a number of clashes against suspected Taleban fighters in southern and central Afghanistan in the past few months.

Officials estimate that hundreds of rebels have been killed in some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of the Taleban in late 2001.

UK soldier killed

At least 15 Taleban fighters were killed in overnight fighting in Uruzgan province, Gen Raufi told a news conference in the southern city of Kandahar on Monday.

"Most probably Amanullah, the brother-in-law of Mullah Omar... was also killed," he said, Reuters news agency reports.

Separately, 12 Taleban fighters died during a raid by Afghan and coalition troops on a village in Kandahar province early on Monday, the general said.

And in neighbouring Helmand province, between six and 10 Taleban fighters were reported killed in fighting on Sunday evening.

A British soldier was also killed in the gunfight, the first such casualty since the UK sent troops to southern Afghanistan.

Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Azimi confirmed the casualty figures in the bloodiest of the three clashes.

He told the BBC that 15 Taleban fighters had died in Uruzgan's Dihrawud district, and seven others had been arrested.

But he said Mullah Omar's brother-in-law had been among those detained, not killed.

A Taleban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, confirmed the clashes but said only one of the movement's fighters had been killed, in Helmand overnight.