NATO says kills 70-80 Taliban in fierce battle

AFGHANISTAN: NATO troops killed 70-80 Taliban in a fierce battle in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said on Monday.

A reconnaissance patrol hunting Taliban engaged a large group of fighters on Sunday about 15 km (9 miles) from the village of Musa Qala in Helmand, a stronghold of the Islamist guerrillas and the main opium-growing province in the world's major supplier.

In a four-hour battle backed by attack helicopters and close air support, the ground commander estimated 70-80 guerrillas were killed, a NATO spokesman said.

There were no NATO casualties, but three soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force were wounded during another clash earlier in the day.

Fighting in Afghanistan this year is the worst since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban's strict government in 2001. About 4,000 people have been killed, a quarter of them civilians.

The worst fighting is in the south and east, bordering Pakistan, the epicenter of the Taliban insurgency.

The area is also the centre of illegal opium poppy growing in the country that accounts for 90 percent of world output.

Earlier a suicide car bomb exploded next to a British convoy in southern Afghanistan, and troops speeding away from the scene fired at several civilian cars. Up to three Afghans civilians were killed and 19 people were wounded in the chaotic violence, including three British soldiers, officials said.

The suicide blast in Kandahar on Sunday damaged an open-top NATO vehicle. Three NATO soldiers were wounded, said Squadron Leader Jason Chalk, an alliance spokesman in the city.

The suicide bomber tried to ram his car into the convoy, Britain's Ministry of Defense said. One of the wounded soldiers was in a serious condition.

Two civilians were killed and 10 wounded in the blast, said Dr. Bashir Ahmed of the main Kandahar hospital.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack.

After the explosion, soldiers speeding from the scene fired at civilian vehicles. An Associated Press reporter saw soldiers fire on cars about a kilometer (a half mile) from the blast site, including a man on a motorcycle who was shot in the stomach.

Ahmed said six Afghans were wounded by the gunfire. Zarar Ahmad Muqbal, Afghanistan's interior minister, told a news conference in Kabul that one civilian was killed and one was injured by the gunfire.

KABUL, Monday, Reuters, AP