Two soldiers,48 Taliban killed in Afghan battle

The fighting erupted during the day Saturday in a Taliban hotbed in Panjwayi district of Kandahar province and lasted into the night, an Afghan commander said.

The Afghan army said that 48 Talibal rebels were killed and five arrested; the coalition put the toll at 45.

That brought to almost 200 the number of insurgents killed as part of Operation Mountain Thrust over the past two weeks. The Afghan defence ministry had put the toll for that period at 149 on Saturday.

Two soldiers with the US-led coalition died in hospital after being badly wounded in the clash, the force said in a statement. Another was hurt. Their nationalities were not released.

Forty-three coalition soldiers have now died in combat in Afghanistan this year, around half of them Americans.

Panjwayi district is only 35 kilometres (22 miles) southwest of the south's biggest city Kandahar, which has been hit by regular attacks including Iraq-style suicide blasts.

The fugitive leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, lived in the area for a while and is reputed to have first assembled the movement's religious scholars into a fighting force there in 1994 to rescue two girls abducted and raped by regional warlords.

Two years later the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan and imposed a harsh version of Islamic Sharia law on the population which included public stoning to death for adultery. They also sheltered the Al-Qaeda terror network.

The hardliners were removed from power in late 2001 by a US-led coalition after they failed to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders following the September 11, 2001 strikes on US cities.

Panjwayi has seen some of the fiercest fighting in the past month, with the Taliban and security forces mounting some of their biggest attacks since 2001.

The clashes have killed dozens of Taliban but also 34 civilians who were caught up in a coalition strike in Panjwayi last month.

Saturday's battle started when a joint Afghan and coalition force initially engaged eight to 10 "enemy extremists," the coalition said.

"The enemy fighters attempted to flee the area but then joined other reinforcements in a nearby compound.

"Afghan and coalition forces pressed the attack with joint fire and a ground assault, killing an estimated 45 extremists in the firefight."

The coalition has said Operation Mountain Thrust is intended to "set the conditions" for a NATO-led force's takeover in late July of command of the southern region from a US-led coalition .