A NATO and Afghan operation to retake a Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan has killed at least 12 Taliban fighters and two children, the Afghan Defense Ministry said.
In other violence in southern Afghanistan, a NATO soldier was killed and another wounded in an explosion on Saturday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. ISAF did not give any further details about the nationalities of the casualties or the exact location of the incident.
Taliban militants overran Musa Qala in February, four months after British troops left the town following a contentious peace agreement that gave security responsibilities to Afghan elders. Taliban fighters have been in control of the town ever since.
A string of battles around Musa Qala in recent months have signaled a renewed focus by US forces to take on the Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan's poppy-growing south. Saturday's violence was the latest in a series of deadly engagements in Helmand Province -- the world's largest opium poppy-growing region and the front line of Afghanistan's bloodiest fighting this year.
Defense Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said elders in the area had asked the Taliban to leave, but when they refused, the elders sought help from government troops.
"For some period of time, Musa Qala has become a base for terrorists. Hundreds of foreign terrorists have gathered there," he said on Saturday.
Twelve Taliban have been killed in fighting since the operation began on Friday afternoon. Separately, two children were killed when security forces clashed with Taliban traveling in a convoy with civilians, Azimi said.
"The enemy always tries to use human shields ... and our demand from them is that they stop putting civilian lives in danger," Azimi said.
Next to Musa Qala, in Sangin district, Taliban militants hanged a 12-year-old boy in an orchard, allegedly because the boy gave information to the Afghan government and international forces, said the provincial police chief, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.
US-led coalition forces, meanwhile, conducted airstrikes in an operation targeting a Taliban commander believed to be responsible for attacks against security forces and involvement in weapons and drug trafficking, the coalition said. The US-led forces bombarded the compound where he was hiding with several militants on Friday in Musa Qala district.
The building was destroyed and "several militants" were killed, coalition forces said. "Multiple secondary explosions were also reported, indicating the presence of a sizable weapons cache."
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