AFGHANISTAN: Coalition forces in Afghanistan have killed several suspected al-Qaeda extremists, the US army said yesterday.
Maj Bryan Hilferty said coalition troops were engaged in a gunfight resulting in the deaths of suspected enemy fighters at an undisclosed location.
"We received inefficient enemy fire and we returned fire from both ground and air and killed several terrorists," Maj Hilferty said. No injuries to coalition troops were reported.
The latest clash came just days before the scheduled arrival of former Afghan king Mr Mohammed Zahir Shah after almost three decades in exile, an event which has thrown security forces in the capital into overdrive.
Mr Zahir Shah is due to inaugurate a loya jirga, or traditional grand assembly, which will select Afghanistan's next government in June. His visit has already been postponed over safety concerns.
In the latest security incident, seven people, including five wearing uniforms of the new Afghan police force, were arrested after 30 armed assailants exchanged fire with two multinational security patrols in Kabul.
The detainees claimed they had been mistakenly arrested while investigating a burglary but a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said their presence was "questionable".
Elsewhere, nine people were reportedly killed in heavy fighting as government-backed forces in Afghanistan's central Wardak province secured part of the region after a retreat from a local warlord.
The UNHCR, whose chief, Mr Ruud Lubbers, visited the Iran-Afghan border yesterday, has said it hopes to return nearly a quarter of a million Afghan refugees over the next six weeks.