Fighting in Afghanistan kills 28 Taliban militants

Two separate clashes in southernAfghanistan have left 28 suspected Taliban militants dead, Afghan police said Thursday.

LateWednesday, 22suspected Taliban militants were killed in a joint operation involving Canadian troops and Afghan police in Zhari district in Kandahar province.

Zhari district police chief Ghulam Rasool Aga said Canadian soldiers, with the help of Afghan police, pinpointed a Taliban position in the district and called for air support.

NATO planes responded, dropping cluster bombs in the area.

Earlier Wednesday in the same district, a clash between Afghan police and Taliban militants left six militants dead. The fighting also wounded four Taliban militants, one policeman and three villagers.

Lt.-Cmdr. Kris Phillips, spokesperson for the Canadian military, confirmed to the Canadian Press that Canadian troops and Afghan police fought with a group of militants late Wednesday after they were attacked with small arms fire, but declined to confirm the number of militant deaths.

Phillips said the fighting was "pretty standard stuff for the Pashmul area," a region that lies between Zhari and Panjwaii districts, two areas west of the Kandahar Air Field that were the site of a military operation earlier this year.

In that operation, NATO troops tried to clear the area of Taliban militants.

Canada has more than 2,000 troops in Afghanistan, the majority stationed in the south at Kandahar Airfield. Forty-two Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died in Afghanistan since Canada first sent troops there in early 2002.

Phillips said Taliban militants sometimes hide out in the region, but "the bad guys don't have complete freedom of movement."

"These guys can kind of weave their way around, but eventually we see them and deal with them in the appropriate way."