Kabul, May 30: US-led forces in Afghanistan say they have killed 25 Taliban gunmen, including two militant commanders, in an airstrike in the northern province of Baghlan.
“At least 25 Taliban were killed in the airstrike” carried out in Baghlan’s Dana Ghori district on Friday night, the Times of India quoted provincial police officials as citing an intelligence report on Saturday.
In a separate operation on Friday night, four militants were reportedly arrested by Afghan police forces in the Doshi and Khenjan districts, also in Baghlan.
In neighboring Kunduz province, an Afghan child sustained injuries in Ali Abad district during crossfire between Taliban and US-led coalition forces on Saturday morning.
The incident comes on the heels of the US military’s admission that at least 23 unarmed Afghans died in an airstrike that hit a civilian caravan in the southern province of Uruzgan in February.
Hundreds of Afghans have been killed since the start of 2010 as figures highlight a 33 percent jump compared to the same period last year.
A UN report stated that over 2,400 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the largest number of civilian casualties since the war began in October 2001.
——-Agencies