About 40 militants were killed in separate incidents in troubled parts of Afghanistan in operations by Afghan forces with the support of international military air power, officials said Tuesday.United States-led coalition forces bombed a Taliban gathering in Giro district in central Ghazni province early on Tuesday, killing 22 militants and wounding another eight, provincial spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP. The coalition confirmed the operation but only said "several militants" were killed. Two other rebels were slain in a firefight with Afghan soldiers elsewhere the same day, Jahangir said.
Separately, 10 Taliban, including a local commander, were killed Tuesday in another Ghazni district in an operation carried out by the Afghan army, police and coalition forces, district police chief Faiz Muhammad Tophan told AFP. Ghazni, which lies on the road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, has experienced a surge in Taliban-linked unrest in the past year amid rising violence in other parts of the wartorn country.