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Thirty-two dead in Helmand clashes

An Afghan man looks at a damaged car after a remote-controlled bomb hit a police vehicle in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan, on Thursday. PHOTO: AP

Clashes in southern Afghanistan in recent days have killed 32 militants, including two Taliban commanders, officials said.

Separately, Canada's prime minister has unveiled a proposal to withdraw his country's forces from the former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan in 2011, a move that largely accedes to opposition demands amid threats of an early election.

Afghan and US-led coalition troops fought on Wednesday with militants north of Musa Qala in Helmand Province, leaving 30 suspected Taliban fighters dead, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Coalition aircraft bombed militant hide-outs during the five-hour battle, it said.

The coalition said 11 militants were detained and 450kg of heroin were confiscated during the operation, but it did not report any casualties. The Defense Ministry claim of 30 deaths could not be independently verified.

A large weapons cache and a heroin processing lab were also destroyed, the coalition said.

Taliban militants were in control of Musa Qala for much of last year before Afghan, US and British troops regained control of the town and its surrounding areas in December.

On Thursday, a remote controlled roadside bomb hit a police convoy in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, killing a policeman and wounding four others, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.

Helmand is the world's largest opium-producing region, and officials estimate that up to 40 percent of proceeds from the nation's drug trade are used to fund the insurgency.

On Monday, Afghan and NATO-led troops attacked and killed regional Taliban commanders Mullah Abdul Matin and Mullah Karim Agha, who were responsible for a number of suicide bombing missions in Helmand, the alliance said on Thursday.

"As a result of this successful attack, the Taliban's networks have suffered another severe setback," said Brigadier General Carlos Branco, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

The Taliban did not immediately confirm the deaths.

In neighboring Kandahar Province, authorities detained seven men suspected of involvement in the suicide bombing that killed more than 100 people on Sunday at a dog fight in the provincial capital, Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said.

Afghan intelligence agents rounded up the suspects on Wednesday in two separate operations in Kandahar City and in Arghandab District to the north, Khalid said.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is trying to extend past February next year the military operation in Kandahar Province. Harper's minority government is under pressure to withdraw Canada's troops after the deaths of 78 soldiers and a diplomat.

"It seems clear that we have moved significantly toward the kind of bipartisan consensus that can be presented to parliament for ratification," Harper said.

The new proposal, like the earlier version, is conditional on NATO supplying additional forces and equipment to back up Canadian troops in Kandahar. But while the earlier proposal failed to set a withdrawal date after the mission ends in 2011, the new version sets that date at December of that year.

Canada's military mission in the south is set to expire in February next year unless it is extended by parliament. An agreement would avoid an early election over the issue. Next month's vote on extending the mission is a confidence motion that would trigger early elections if rejected. Other votes on other issues could also trigger an election.
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