80 Taliban killed in coalition strikes

KHOST (AFP) - Around 80 Taliban were killed in a series of air raids by international military forces near eastern Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, officials said Sunday. About 65 of the rebels were killed in a single air assault late Saturday in eastern Paktia province on a ‘large group of Taliban’, said Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration. Four others were killed in a second assault targeting a vehicle carrying rebels in the same region of the province, Patan district, and four in a nearby area, he said. Another three were killed in an air strike near Gardez, the capital of the restive province, he said. “Altogether 76 Taliban were killed in separate air strikes by coalition forces,” Darvish told AFP. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and separate US-led coalition could only immediately confirm the last incident, which they said was targeted at three militants spotted planting a bomb near Gardez. The Afghan defence ministry announced earlier that four other rebels were killed in a different part of Paktia, Zurmat, also on Saturday. Seven were seized, it said in a statement. Casualty tolls in battles between insurgents and Afghan security forces and their international allies are often difficult to establish, with officials regularly issuing different"