Afghan and coalition forces killed more than 15 insurgents and captured five while searching for militants who escaped in a daring jail-break last week, the U.S. military said Sunday. Officials have not yet confirmed whether the insurgents who were killed or captured in the Saturday raid in Kandahar province were part of the nearly 400 Taliban militants who escaped from a Kandahar prison on Friday. A U.S. military statement said the insurgents, who were holed up in a farming compound west of Rawonay, fired at troops who then retaliated with an air strike.Authorities continued to search for the escaped prisoners Sunday. Afghan security forces have said looking for them will be tough in some areas, if not impossible in others. The Taliban is entrenched in the region, which is replete with militants' hideouts. The militants may have gone to two regions of Kandahar province with a large Taliban presence -- Maiwand and Zherai districts.
The incident, President Hamid Karzai told reporters Sunday, "is indicative of the challenges we still have, indicative of the weakness that we still have. Therefore it's all the more reason for us to work harder and to keep building Afghan institutions and Afghan intelligence and be a lot more steadfast in our resolve in confronting terrorism."