40 Taliban killed in Afghan fighting

Afghan and coalition officials on Saturday investigated claims that civilians were killed in a coalition air raid after reports that scores of people may have died.

The clashes come amid stepped up US-led military efforts to crush armed extremists, primarily the Taliban, behind a bloody insurgency raging across Afghanistan, particularly in the south.

Skirmishes between coalition and Taliban militants raged throughout the southern Uruzgan province Friday into Saturday, with battlefield estimates indicating that 31 insurgents were killed in and around the Chora district, said Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick.

Afghan and coalition soldiers also killed two male "foreigners" wearing burkas the body-shrouding veil worn by women and detained five Taliban in Uruzgan's Dihrawud district on Friday, an Afghan Defence Ministry statement said. The nationalities of the foreigners were unclear.

Elsewhere in Uruzgan, Afghan and coalition soldiers repelled an attack by 20 insurgents, killing one, the US military said in a statement.

Coalition and Afghan soldiers also raided several militant positions in neighbouring Helmand province's volatile Sangin district, killing 10 insurgents in a "brief battle," the military said in a statement.

The British military in southern Afghanistan denied there were any civilian deaths in Wednesday's bombing in the Nawzad district of Helmand province, which it said was aimed at legitimate Taliban targets and killed 19 rebels.