Up to 27 militants were killed on Friday in separate clashes with Afghan police and US-led coalition forces in the latest violence to hit Afghanistan, officials said.Twenty Taliban were killed after a seven-hour gun battle with a police convoy in the western province of Farah, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. “Our police engaged the enemy with bravery and killed 20 Taliban,” he said, adding that three policemen were also injured during the fighting in the Dasht-i-Bakwa area. Officials say insurgents have infiltrated Farah province bordering Iran after being defeated by foreign and Afghan troops in the troubled southern provinces last year.
Separately, US-led troops and aircraft attacked a group of militants preparing to launch a rocket attack in the eastern province of Paktika and killed up to seven rebels on Friday, the coalition said in a statement. The attack happened in Bermel district.
A militant was killed and another was injured late on Thursday when a bomb they were planting on a roadside went off prematurely in eastern Kunar province, a police official said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Taliban militants overran Afghan town of Musa Qala that British troops left after a contentious peace agreement in October, destroying the government centre and temporarily holding elders hostage, officials and residents said Friday.