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Eight coalition soldiers wounded, six Taliban killed in Afghanistan

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Kabul - At least six Taliban rebels were killed and seven coalition troops were wounded in separate firefights in southern Afghanistan, a coalition forces spokeswoman said on Saturday.

'Coalition forces have been involved in numerous firefights in the Pashmol area of Panjwayee district of Kandahar province this morning,' Captain Julie Roberge, coalition spokeswoman in southern Kandahar province, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

She said that 'the fighting started at around 1:00am Saturday morning, and during the fighting which is still ongoing, three coalition soldiers and one national army soldier were wounded.'

Roberge said that five Taliban fighters were killed and one was injured and transported to a coalition hospital. Coalition forces arrested another four of the Islamic radical rebels in the course of fighting, she said.

She said that the operation in Kandahar province was part of Operation Mountain Thrust, which started late May in the south of the country and is aimed at rooting out the remnants of the Taliban in the region before the official transfer of the command to NATO forces by the end of July.

NATO forces are stationed in the capital, and the northern and western parts of the country, and will formally take over command of the volatile south later this month from the US-led coalition force.

A mounting insurgency has plagued the south since spring this year, raising the fear that the NATO allied countries that are leading the UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan will have to engage more counter-insurgency after their deployment in the south than as a peacekeeping mission.

In another incident, Taliban attacked coalition troops in southern Zabul province, 30 miles north of Kandahar city, on Friday night, leaving five coalition soldiers wounded and one Taliban fighter dead, Roberge said.

Over 1,100 people have been killed, mostly militants loyal to the ousted regime of the Taliban, since January this year.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway