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US and Afghan forces killed up to 50 Taleban fighters in central Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday after the latest burst of violence in the run-up to crucial September elections. A major Taleban ammunition depot was destroyed and 25 guerrillas captured in the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province, Governor Jan Mohammad Khan said.

"We have suffered some losses too, but I do not know how many," he told Reuters. "Between 40 and 50 Taleban died in the fighting and bombing."

Monday's fighting followed a clash in a village in the same district earlier that day in which six Afghan troops and one American soldier were killed, Khan said.

Taleban Spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi confirmed the loss of a major ammunition dump. But he put guerrilla losses at four and said over 20 Afghan and US troops died.

US Military Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O'Hara described Monday's fighting as a 'successful' operation, but would neither confirm nor deny Khan's figures on Taleban losses. He said the operation was continuing.

TALEBAN REORGANISATION: Separately, Taleban guerrillas killed a district police chief in neighbouring Zabul province overnight, a local official said, while the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted police as saying that an election candidate was killed when his vehicle hit a landmine in the south-eastern province of Paktika.

The latest violence has followed a call by the Taleban's fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, urging unity in the fight against the Afghan government and foreign forces.

Taleban Spokesman Hakimi said Omar had divided Afghanistan into two war zones - eastern and southern - to make guerrilla efforts more effective and commissions comprising 14 commanders had been established for each of the two zones.

They would report to a leadership council expanded from 10 to 18 members, which would be supervised by two senior commanders, Mullah's Brother and Mullah Obaidullah, who would report to Omar.

Omar's whereabouts have remained unknown since US-led forces overthrew the Taleban for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US cities in 2001. Elsewhere on Tuesday, about 2,000 Afghans chanted anti-US slogans outside the main American base at Bagram to the north of Kabul after the arrest of several villagers in what the US military called an anti-insurgent operation.

O'Hara said the US and Afghan forces arrested eight people in a raid on a compound during which troops found improvised bombs.

The protesters complained that three men had been detained when the US troops entered a house in Bagram village without permission and demanded their release.

Copyright Reuters, 2005


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