5 militants killed, 17 arrested in Afghan raids

Afghan police, supported by the army and the NATO-led coalition forces, eliminated five militants and detained 17 others in different provinces, the county's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. "Afghan National Police (ANP) in partnership with the army and coalition forces conducted a series of cleanup operations in surrounding areas of Kabul, Kunduz, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan, Logar, Helmand and Farah provinces, killing five armed Taliban militants and detaining 17 others over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates. The ANP also seized weapons besides defusing 10 rounds of landmines, it added. In addition, up to nine Taliban militants have been killed and 16 arrested during a three-day operation in the country's northern province of Badakhshan. "Afghan army and police conducted a three-day operation ending on Monday. A total of six villages have been cleared of militants. A military leader of the insurgent named Qari Mahmood was among the dead," the provincial police chief Imamuddin Motmain told Xinhua on Tuesday. He said a Taliban local leader named Qari Sabir was also captured in the raid. The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments. The mountainous Badakhshan province, some 315 km northeast of Afghan capital Kabul has been seeing Taliban-led violence in recent weeks. On March 2, Taliban ambushed an army convoy in Wardoj district, killing 16 army soldiers.