Over 100 Taliban rebels were killed by Afghan and international forces in separate incidents around Afghanistan in the past two days, officials said Saturday. Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), supported by US-led coalition troops, thwarted an attempted Taliban ambush near the village of Dajabad in the western province of Farah, after which they came under fire from the insurgents, dpa quoted the coalition as saying in a statement. The ANSF returned fire, killing "over 30 insurgent fighters with accurate small arms fire and precision airstrikes," the statement said, adding that "no civilian casualties were reported during this engagement." However, Haji Rahim, a local elder from the Bala Bluk area, where the clashes took place, said 108 civilians were killed by the allied forces who bombarded the village after the locals tried to prevent them from entering. According to Rahim, the dead included 14 local policemen and several women and children, and more than 20 houses were destroyed. Rahim denied that there were any militants in the village. The Interior Ministry said it had launched an investigation into the incident. Meanwhile, in the Watapur area of Eastern Kunar province, 37 insurgents were killed in a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force(ISAF) bombing, the Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement. The incident also occurred Friday and while some locals reported that at least half those killed were civilians, Major John Thomas, a spokesman for ISAF, was quoted in a statement saying that "contrary to some press reports, at this time there is no reason for us to believe that there are any civilian casualties of any type." Three Afghan National Army soldiers and some foreign military were also wounded in the incident, the Defence Ministry statement said, adding that four civilians were killed when a mine exploded in the same area of Kunar, on Friday. ISAF also announced the death of two of its soldiers in Watapur on Thursday. Friday also witnessed clashes in the Charchino area of Southern Uruzgan, where Coalition forces killed 33 Taliban after an insurgent attack on a police checkpoint on Thursday night, the Defence Ministry said in another statement. More than 3,000 people, mostly insurgents, have been killed in the violence in Afghanistan and over 100 NATO soldiers have also died in combat in the war-torn country this year, dpa reported.
