An Afghan armed woman and several Taliban militants were killed by US-led coalition forces and seven more insurgents were killed by indigenous police forces, officials said on Sunday. Coalition forces killed several militants including an armed woman during a search operation in Tani district of south-eastern province of Khost on Saturday, US military said in a statement on Sunday. After the first round of engagement, in which several Taliban militants were killed, the combined forces identified an armed militant, who made "threatening gestures and presented an imminent threat," the statement said. "Coalition forces responded in self-defence, engaging and killing the armed individual," it said, adding, "Coalition forces discovered the dead militant armed with an AK-47 assault rifle was a woman after the engagement." Two other militants were arrested by the combined forces, who told the joint forces that the armed woman was sent out to determine coalition forces' locations. This is the first armed Afghan woman to have been killed in military encounters since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a US-led military invasion. Meanwhile, four militants were killed after they attacked a police outpost in Nangarhar province, near border with Pakistan, Abdul Ghafour, a police spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
