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Afghan forces kill 33 suspected Taliban insurgents

US-backed Afghan forces have killed at least 33 militants in three days of fighting against suspected Taliban insurgents in violence-wracked southeast Afghanistan, the US military said yesterday.

Afghan and US-led coalition forces have been engaged in a major operation against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda bases in the mountains of the Daychopan district of Zabul province, 300km southwest of Kabul.

US military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis said the coalition confirmed at least 33 militants were killed in fighting between Monday and Wednesday.

Zabul governor Hafizullah Hashim said by satellite phone that up to 20 more militants were killed in eight hours of fighting on Friday but Davis was unable to confirm that death toll.

"Their bodies are scattered in the area. They [the Taliban] have been weakened and I think they cannot pose any threat to us any more," Hashim said on Friday.

"The American aircraft heavily bombed the area."

Three Afghan soldiers were wounded but not seriously.

One US Special Operations soldier died on Friday morning of injuries sustained in a fall during a night combat assault near Daychopan, the US military said.

"The injuries were sustained during an accidental fall and were not the result of hostile action. The soldier's name is being withheld pending next-of-kin notification," it said in a statement on Friday from the coalition's Bagram Air Base headquarters north of Kabul.

A US-led coalition soldier was also wounded during a firefight near Daychopan on Thursday night. The soldier, whose nationality was not disclosed, was airlifted to a US military hospital in Germany.

Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai yesterday inaugurated the central corps of the fledgling national army -- heralded as another step in the long road toward rebuilding a nation shattered by civil war.

At the ceremony at a military training ground south of Kabul, Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim also announced that he had presented to Karzai a proposal on long-delayed reforms to his ministry.
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