Taliban killed 10 civilians in clashes in southern Afghanistan in which up to 60 rebels also died, the government said on Tuesday after local officials said dozens of civilians were feared dead. Four policemen were also killed in days of fighting in the Chora district of the southern province of Uruzgan, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
"Police resisted the enemy, as a result of which 50 to 60 enemy elements were killed, which includes a provincial-level Taliban commander," Bashary told AFP. "Unfortunately, 10 civilians were also killed by Taliban and 18 others are wounded. Four police have also been martyred," he said.
Uruzgan provincial council chief Mawlawi Hamdullah told AFP late Monday that accounts from the district suggested around 60 civilians may have been killed, most of them in bombing raids by foreign forces, in the fighting that started Saturday.
"We may be able in course of days to determine the exact number of dead and wounded. Now we can only talk about estimation," he said. About 100 people wounded in the fighting were in hospital in the provincial capital Tirin Kot, he said. The bodies of about 50 Taliban had been left in the area.
A spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had received no reports of civilian deaths from ISAF action but a "large number" of Taliban were dead.
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