14 militants killed in Afghanistan

Up to 14 Taliban militants have been killed and five others detained in different military operations in Afghanistan, authorities said Sunday. "The Afghan National Police in partnership with the army and the NATO-led coalition forces launched eight cleanup operations in Kunar, Kandahar, Logar, Helmand and Nimroz provinces, killing eight Taliban insurgents and detaining five others over the past 24 hours," the country's Interior Ministry said in a statement. They also found and seized weapons, the statement said, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces. In another development, six militants were killed in a coalition airstrike in Helmand province 555 km south of capital Kabul on Saturday evening, a provincial police spokesman said Sunday. "The killed militants were involved in anti-government activities. Prior to their deaths they crammed a car with explosives to launch terror attack possibly in provincial capital Lashkar Gah," spokesman Farid Farhang told Xinhua. "The explosives-packed car was powerful enough to have caused significant injury or loss of life," he said, adding that weapons and the booby-trapped vehicle were destroyed in the raid that took place in the Sara Godar area outside Lashkar Gah at about 4:30 p.m. local time Saturday. The Taliban has been waging an insurgency since its regime was toppled by a U.S-led invasion in late 2001. A total of three civilians were killed and 90 others wounded when Taliban carried out a suicide car bombing in eastern Wardak province on Nov. 23.