KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – U.S.-led troops killed 14 militants in two days of clashes in southern Afghanistan, U.S. military statements said Friday.
Ten militants were killed by mortar fire following an insurgent attack on a military base in Helmand province’s Nar Surkh district on Wednesday, a statement said.
Troops killed another four militants in the same district on Thursday, after the insurgents fired on a joint U.S.-Afghan patrol, a second statement said. There were no U.S. casualties in the clashes, military said.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of a Taliban-led insurgency and the world’s largest opium-producing area. More than 6,000 people have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.