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The US military said Friday that air strikes killed 14 insurgents when troops under its command were locked in a six-hour battle with militants at a Taliban hotspot in southern Afghanistan.
It said insurgents ambushed an Afghan-coalition patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province, a notorious hub for Taliban militants fighting against foreign troops and the main opium producing part of Afghanistan. After coming under attack troops "identified an enemy position and called in for close-air support resulting in six insurgents killed," the military said.
Insurgents then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and gunfire before troops called in another air strike "killing eight more insurgents," it added in a statement. Three suspects were arrested during the incident Thursday, including one who surrendered with a RPG launcher and was receiving medical treatment, it said.
There was no independent confirmation of the death tolls.
Separately, a makeshift bomb exploded in the same province Friday, killing a man and a woman riding a motorbike, a local official said. "Today at 8:00 am (0430 GMT) a roadside bomb exploded against a woman and a man travelling by motorcycle. Both of them were killed," said Daud Ahmadi, spokesman for the Helmand governor. He blamed the attack on "enemies of Afghanistan".
In the capital Kabul, a policeman was killed when a booby-trapped bag he was inspecting blew up, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP.
A roadside bomb killed two Afghan soldiers and wounded another four late Thursday in Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan, an army commander said.
There were no immediate claims for any of the attacks.