Afghan clashes kill 32 rebels

Troops fought gun battles and called in airstrikes against insurgents in southern Afghanistan, killing 32 militants, the U.S.-led coalition said Saturday.

Attacks elsewhere killed five workers for a construction firm and a police officer, and a British soldier died when his vehicle overturned.

The major battle began when militants armed with guns and rockets attacked Afghan and coalition troops as their patrol passed through a “heavily vegetated area” in Oruzgan province Thursday, a coalition statement said.

The troops returned fire and called in airstrikes that killed three of the rebels, it said.

When militants attacked the patrol again shortly after the airstrikes, the troops “defeated the attack, killing 29 insurgents,” the coalition said. A child and two Afghan policemen were wounded.

The fighting was in the remote Khas Oruzgan district.

The struggle between security forces and Islamic militants is intensifying across the southern half of Afghanistan, illustrating the limited success of the nearly seven-year effort to stabilize the country.

The U.S. Defense Department forecast in a report released Friday that the Taliban movement would “maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008.”

In other incidents reported Saturday, police said gunmen attacked a convoy of trucks and cars belonging to a construction company in the eastern province of Khowst on Friday, killing five people and wounding two.

In the south, police said a roadside bomb killed one officer and injured two on Saturday near the border town of Spin Buldak.

The coalition reported another roadside bomb attack Saturday in Wardak, the province just south of Kabul. It said initial reports showed none of its members were killed, but gave no details.

Three coalition troops and their Afghan interpreter died in a similar blast in the same area on Thursday.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said one of its soldiers was killed and two injured when their patrol vehicle overturned in Afghanistan late Friday.

The death brought the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 118.