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Operation Silicon launched in South: 136 militants killed in Afghanistan: NATO

* Coalition forces say 87 Taliban killed in Herat on Sunday

SANGIN VALLEY: British troops swept into a Taliban stronghold lush with opium poppy fields on Monday, launching a new NATO operation in southern Afghanistan just as US-led forces reported killing 136 militants in the west.

British soldiers quickly came under fire as they patrolled among the high-walled compounds and deep irrigation ditches of militant-held Sangin Valley in Helmand province. Troops responded with gunfire and artillery.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Operation Silicon, the latest in a series of offensive maneuvers launched by NATO in the volatile south against a resurgent Taliban militia. Meanwhile, the US-led coalition reported the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan since January, during three days of clashes in Zerkoh Valley in the western province of Herat.

Acting on intelligence of Taliban activities, coalition and Afghan forces attacked the insurgents and called in an airstrike, destroying seven Taliban positions and killing 87 fighters during a 14-hour engagement on Sunday, a coalition statement said.

Another 49 Taliban were killed two days earlier by a combination of gunfire and an airstrike, it said. One US soldier was also killed. The casualty figures could not independently confirmed, although police said that “a large number of people” had died in the fighting.

The bloodshed enraged local people. About 500 gathered in front of the police station and government headquarters in the nearby town of Shindand on Monday, claiming the dead were civilians and chanting, “The Americans are killing us. We are innocent!” said district police chief Gen Gul Aqa. He said some of protesters were armed and opened fire on the government buildings, breaking windows. The crowd later dispersed.

More than 3,000 NATO and Afghan troops are to have a role in Silicon, the latest drive to secure the country’s most volatile province and hub of Afghanistan’s booming illegal drug industry. It will involve some 1,100 British troops, 600 US soldiers and more troops from the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia and Canada. Over 1,000 Afghan government troops were also taking part, military officials said.

On Sunday night, An Afghan employee of a Western aid group was gunned down in a northern province by Taliban fighters, police said. And a suspected Taliban suicide bomber killed at least one Afghan guard of a US security firm and wounded three more of the guards in Kandahar on Monday. agencies

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