US-led Coalition forces conducted two operations in southern Afghanistan, killing a number of Taliban militants as well as two civilians caught in the cross fire, the military said Sunday, according to DPA. A woman and a child were killed after the coalition forces exchanged small-arms fire with suspected Taliban militants in Kajaki district of southern Helmand province on Saturday, the US military said in statement. While searching the houses, the combined forces came under attack by small-arms fire and hand grenades by militants "who were barricaded in separate rooms" in a compound, the statement said. "The assailants were killed when Coalition forces responded in self-defence," Major Chris Belcher, a coalition forces spokesman, was quoted in the statement as saying. "A search of the site after the exchange revealed a dead female and child in one of the rooms the assailants used to engage coalition forces," he said. Two individuals, suspected to have ties to Taliban insurgents, were also detained, it added.
