More than 57 Taliban fighters killed on eve of Ramadan (Roundup)

Sep 12, 2007, 20:32 GMT

Kabul - More than 57 Taliban fighters were killed late overnight and during Wednesday in southern Afghanistan on the eve of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, officials said.

No coalition or Afghan forces were injured in the clashes. But three Afghan soldiers and an engineer were killed Wednesday in two separate roadside bomb attacks in south-eastern Afghan province of Paktia, officials reported.

Forty-five of the Taliban fighters were killed Wednesday after they fired anti-tank weapons at coalition and Afghan soldiers patrolling in Uruzgan province. The ground troops returned fire with air support as backup, officials said.

About a dozen Taliban fighters were killed in US-led coalition air strikes in Arghandab district of southern Zabul province overnight, officials said on Wednesday.

The Taliban have announced an offensive - called 'Nasrat', or 'success' - for the month of Ramadan, which begins Thursday. The announcement came just a short time after it had indicated it wanted to open talks with the government.

A rebel spokesman, Qari Ahmad Yousufi, on Tuesday said, 'From the first day of Ramadan, we are launching a military operation by the name of NASRAT, meaning success.'

'Mullah Biradar, a close aid of Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, will lead this operation,' he added.

In the Arghandab clashes, Afghan and coalition forces called air support after reports that a group of more than 20 Taliban rebels were preparing to ambush a combat patrol near a village in Arghandab district of the province, said a military statement released from the US base in Bagram.

Nearly 245 Taliban fighters have been killed in the joint operations by the Afghan and coalition forces Kandahar and Zabul provinces since August 27, it added.

'It appears that the enemies of peace and stability may be planning to use the holy month of Ramadan as an opportunity to conduct violent acts against the innocent people of Afghanistan,' said Major Chris Belcher, the Combined Joint Task Force 82 spokesperson.

In the other killings, provincial spokesman Din Muhammad Darvesh said an Afghan soldier and an engineer working for a Turkish road construction company were killed by a roadside bomb in Hazar Khail village in Zurmat district while two police were killed and one injured when their vehicle was targeted in the Shawal area of Ghalgai district.

Clashes between Taliban-led rebels and Afghan government troops and their international military allies have intensified in the past several weeks. More than 4,400 people - most of them insurgents - have been killed in the violence so far this year.