100 Taliban die in Afghan battles

KANDAHAR (Agencies) - More than 100 militants were killed in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, half in airstrikes that thwarted a major attack on a key town Saturday night, Afghan and British forces said Sunday.

The attempt by hundreds of Taliban fighters to attack the provincial capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah, was the most audacious attack in the province since 2006, reports The Sunday Times.

The Taliban plan appeared to be for a “Tet Offensive” style infiltration of the city, the seat of the Afghan provincial government and home to the headquarters of the British commander in Helmand and the civilian reconstruction component of the British mission in Helmand.

Had the infiltration succeeded then British and Afghan forces would have faced confused street fighting in which Western airstrikes would have been impossible without the risk of causing mass civilian deaths in the city. The leader of the group of Taliban militants, Mullah Qudratullah, was also among the dead, the provincial governor’s spokesman Daud Ahmadi said on Sunday, but there were no casualties among Afghan and NATO forces. The attempt to infiltrate Lashkar Gah from three directions was “virtually unprecedented” in the area in the scale of the attacking force and their degree of coordination, British military spokesman Lt-Col Woody Page said.