Khost: About 30 Taliban insurgents were killed in a NATO-led air strike in eastern Afghanistan after they attacked an Afghan police post, a police official and the alliance said on Sunday.
Afghan border police commander Sayed Nabi Mullahkhil said a police checkpoint in eastern Khost province, which shares a border with Pakistan, was attacked by militants overnight.
A privately owned TV station said 26 insurgents were killed, including one fighter from Chechnya.
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul confirmed an air strike was carried out by foreign troops in Khost late on Saturday after Afghan police called for their assistance.
"Afghan forces came under attack and asked for assistance and we provided it in the form of air support," the spokesman said, declining to give any details of casualties.
General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has identified Khost province, the power base of insurgents loyal to the Haqqani family, as a battlefront, along with the neighboring provinces of Paktia and Paktika.
Bureau Report
First Published: Sunday, November 29, 2009, 18:50