Afghan police and foreign forces killed around 40 suspected Taliban fighters, many in the region where the insurgents recently released a group of South Korean hostages, authorities said Saturday. Police attacked a group of Taliban planning to strike security forces in the central Afghan province of Ghazni, killing 18 of them and arresting six others late Friday, said provincial police Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadai. «It was a successful operation,» he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. In southern Helmand province, a combined police and U.S.-led coalition patrol came under attack from mortar, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, the coalition said in a statement Saturday. In the fight that ensued, «almost two dozen» insurgents were killed, it said. No Afghan or coalition soldiers, or civilians, were killed, the statement said.
