(KUNA) -- Nearly 60 Taliban insurgents have been killed in airstrikes in southern Afghanistan, the US-led coalition troops and Afghan officials claimed on Wednesday. According to the coalition troops, about 24 militants were eliminated in a ground and air offensive in Shah Wali Kot district of the country's southern province of Kandahar last night.The fighters were killed in two separate operations by the Afghan and coalition troops supported by aircraft, said the military statement issued from the US Bagram base this morning. One coalition and an Afghan army soldier were injured in the operations, said the statement which added that civilians in the area were not affected.
Separately, 32 Taliban fighters were killed in air raids in two districts of the country's southern Ghazni province the same night. The operation was carried out in Andar Nava district of the province, located 90 miles south of Kabul. The Taliban were killed in the same area where the militants had seized and kept the 23 South Koreans, two of which were killed, for nearly six weeks.
Province police chief Brigadier General Ali Shah Ahmadzai told KUNA from Ghazni province that 12 militants were killed when a house was bombed in Andar district. He said another 20 militants were eliminated in a separate airstrike in Nava district the same night.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, meanwhile, refuted the claim and said that only one of their men was killed in the attack. He said the foreign troops had bombed civilian areas and killed common citizens. Ahmadi alleged the government was misleading the people to cover civilian casualties in last night's operation. The Coalition of NATO troops so far did not issue any statement on last night's operation in Ghazni province.(