By IANS,
Kabul : Up to 70 Taliban militants have been killed in Afghanistan since Wednesday during military operations and clashes with security forces in different provinces, Xinhua reported Thursday.
According to the Afghan interior ministry, as many as 27 Taliban were killed and eight others injured following 13 joint cleanup operations launched in Kabul, Laghman, Baghlan, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Sari Pul, and Kandahar provinces.
These operations were launched jointly by Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan army and the National Directorate of Security (NDS), or Afghan intelligence agency in collaboration with the NATO-led coalition forces, the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the ANP also detained eight other suspected Taliban militants during the above raids.
In a separate development, up to 30 militants were killed overnight during clashes in the country’s Paktika province, some 155 km from Kabul, the provincial government said Thursday.
In addition, a total of 15 Taliban militants were killed by NATO-led forces’ helicopters in the Kandahar province Wednesday, the provincial government said.
The counter-insurgency operations have been stepped up in the country particularly since early May this year when Taliban launched an annual rebel offensive to target security forces.