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Central & South Asia
Air raids 'target Afghan villages'
Nato says no strikes occured and denies local reports of heavy civilian casualties.
Last Modified: 15 May 2007 12:41 GMT
A resurgent Taliban has been
battling pro-government forces [AP] 

Air attacks by foreign forces have killed 60 Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province overnight, the provincial police chief has said.
 
Esmatullah Alizai said the assaults hit three villages in the province late on Monday while ground troops entered the villages on Tuesday.
"Sixty Taliban militants were killed in a Nato-led aerial operation last night on a Taliban gathering point in Zahri district of Kandahar province," Alizai said.
 
The dead included three well-known Taliban commanders, he said.

Zahri, about 30km east of Kandahar city, has been a flashpoint for fighting.

 

The media office of Nato's International Security Assistance Force said it did not immediately have information about the incident.

 

Taliban version

 

James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Afghanistan, quoted Taliban sources as saying that the air strikes had killed seven people.

 

The Taliban claimed all those killed were civilians attending a wedding party, Bays said.

 

Strikes carried out by Nato and US-led coaltion forces in Afghanistan have often caused heavy civilian casualties and been criticised.

 

The recent killings of civilians in Helmand province have prompted Hamid Karzai, the president, to say that patience was running out and demanded that civilian casualties be avoided.

 

The Taliban movement rose in the early 1990s to sweep to power by 1996. After five years in government, the ultra-conservative group was overthrown by a US-led military coalition.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
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