'600 militants killed in Afghan drive in 45 days'

Since June 10 "more than 600 enemy fighters have been killed," US military spokesman Colonel Thomas Collins told reporters in Kabul.

Operation Mountain Thrust, involving about 10,000 Afghan and coalition troops and support staff, is focused on southern Afghanistan where the militants are active and kicked off mid-May.

Thirty foreign troops, most of them from the US-led coalition, have died in combat in the same period. Another 30 had died from the start of the operation. The latest was a US soldier who died in an attack in Kunar province on Monday.

Afghanistan's main human right watchdog has estimated that more than 600 civilians have been killed or wounded in insurgency-linked unrest in this year.

About 70 percent of the casualties were caused by Taliban-linked attacks, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) told AFP last week.