Afghan and US troops backed by warplanes blasted Taleban hideouts for a second day on Wednesday, killing scores of militants in one of the bloodiest setbacks for the guerrillas since their 2001 overthrow, officials said. General Mohammad Ayoub Salangi, the police chief of Kandahar province who sent 400 troops in pursuit of militants who took over Mian Nishin district last week and executed its police chief, said 76 guerrillas had been killed since Tuesday.
"Their bodies and their weapons are scattered all over Mian Nishin," he said.
Two Afghan soldiers died and six US soldiers were wounded in the operation where Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces meet, which was aimed at checking a surge in violence ahead of September 18 parliamentary elections, Afghan and US officials said.
US A-10 'Tankbuster' aircraft, British Harrier jets and US Apache attack helicopters took part in the offensive.
"This is the heaviest bombing and fighting I have seen since the fall of the Taleban," Kandahar's Deputy Police Chief General Salim Khan said. He said 30 guerrillas were captured.
A US military spokesman said that at least 40-50 Taleban had died in the operation aimed at destroying guerrilla hideouts.
The US spokesman said two US Chinook helicopters were damaged by small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire on Tuesday. One had to make an emergency landing, but there were no casualties.
The US military also said a US Air Force pilot was killed on Wednesday when his U-2 spyplane crashed after a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan. A military spokesman refused to say where the plane, based in the United Arab Emirates, had crashed.
A Taleban spokesman said seven fighters had died, including a senior commander, Mullah Mohammad Essa, but none were captured. Khan said bodies of two more Taleban commanders were found.
He said guerrillas fled through mountains into Zabul as jets and helicopters pounded their positions for a second day.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, government forces said they killed a Taleban-linked commander, Saaduddin Yaqoubzada, and a number of his men in fighting in the western province of Farah.
Yaqoubzada had earlier told Reuters six children, five women and four of his fighters had been killed in the clashes. District officials said one security force member had died.
The guerrillas who seized Mian Nishin, a district capital about 400km south-west of Kabul, said they killed eight of 31 captives they held there, including its police chief, embarrassing the provincial government.