NATO war planes attacked and destroyed a key Taliban headquarters in southern Afghanistan, the British military said yesterday, as police reported 16 civilians and 13 rebels were killed.
The strike, in the province of Helmand early on Thursday, also left five civilians wounded and several houses damaged, provincial police chief Mohammad Nabi Mullahkhail said.
The British military serving under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had "no indications" civilians were killed.
A "significant number" of Taliban were believed to have been killed, Major Mike Geldard, who coordinated the operation, said in a statement.
"At the moment [information] suggests all casualties were Taliban," British military press officer Robert Mead told reporters.
News of the attack comes one day after ISAF announced its forces, working with the Afghan army, had killed up to 150 insurgents in the eastern province of Paktika, after they were tracked infiltrating from Pakistan.
The toll, which could not be independently verified, was one of the highest in weeks.
In the latest attack, Mullahkhail said the Taliban had been holding the civilians as captives in the compound in the remote southernmost district of Garmser.
The wounded, who included women and children, were taken to a hospital in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah for treatment, the police chief said.
The compound "was considered to be one of the main headquarters for Taliban forces in the south of the province" and between 60 and 100 Taliban fighters were inside at the time of the strike, the British statement said.
"More than 100 men closed in on the compound in the early hours of [Thursday] morning, supported by Apache attack helicopters and NATO aircraft," the statement said.
The first of two compounds was targeted by snipers before the building was attacked from the air and destroyed. The second building was then also destroyed by an air attack, it said.
"Both aerial attacks were direct hits and first reports suggest there was no collateral damage to other buildings or civilians," it said.
There were also no casualties among the troops in the nearly four hour operation.
"This was probably the biggest action in Helmand we have conducted to date in terms of a pre-planned operation," Geldard said.
"We have been building up information about this target up for about two weeks," he added.
Garmser saw a number of clashes between rebels and the military last year.
Most of the British deployment of about 5,200 troops in Afghanistan is based in Helmand, which last year saw some of the most intense fighting in an insurgency launched by the Taliban since they were removed from government.
The insurgency, in which the Taliban are supported by the al-Qaeda terror network, was its bloodiest last year -- around 4,000 people were killed, most of them rebels who surprised foreign commanders with the intensity of their attacks.
Human Rights Watch has said more than 1,000 civilians were among those killed in the violence last year, in military action and insurgent attacks.
The NATO force has said the civilian casualties were its greatest regret last year and it was taking steps to prevent such deaths, which risk turning the population against the nearly 40,000 foreign soldiers.
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