KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces raided several homes in a district just north of the capital, killing several militants who shot at them, the coalition said Saturday.
The operation in the Tagab Valley of Kapisa province, 65 kilometres northeast of Kabul, targeted a militant leader, a coalition statement said. During the operation, militants fired on the Afghan and U.S. forces from covered defensive positions.
A separate militant group attacked the joint forces from another building, prompting the U.S. and Afghan soldiers to respond with gunfire and an airstrike, killing the militants. The coalition did not say how many militants were killed.
In the south, armed gunmen killed a tribal leader in a district north of Kandahar city.
Gunmen on a motorbike killed Malim Akbar Khakrezwal, a pro-government tribal leader from the Arghandab region, said Kandahar provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib.
Khakrezwal's brother was the former police chief of Kabul. He was killed in a suicide bombing in 2005.
The Arghandab district - one of the few areas in Kandahar province inhospitable to Taliban fighters - has seen several leaders die in the last year.
Its leading elder, Mullah Naqibullah, died of a heart attack last year, and Abdul Hakim Jan, the commander of the region's police force, was killed in a bombing in February that killed more than 100 people.
More than 1,500 people have died in insurgency related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count.
