Ten Taliban fighters killed in Afghanistan

The rebels died when dozens of Afghan police attacked their hideouts in Helmand province's Garmser district.

Afghan security forces backed by NATO warplanes killed at least 10 Taliban fighters in a fresh sweep in volatile southern Afghanistan, police said on Thursday.

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The rebels died on Wednesday when dozens of Afghan police attacked their hideouts in Helmand province's Garmser district, on the border with Pakistan, local police chief Mohammad Rasoul Aka said.

Aka said the bodies from Wednesday's offensive were still on the ground and that security forces were chasing the insurgents in nearby mountains.

Two policemen were also wounded during the fighting, he told the agency.

Garmser was briefly overrun by the Taliban last month and has been the scene of heavy clashes with rebels over the past week. Some 18 Taliban fighters were killed in a similar operation on Tuesday.

The Taliban, unseated from power by a US-led coalition and Afghan warlords nearly five years ago, have this year stepped up their insurgency mostly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

On Monday NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took over from the US coalition in six southern provinces, including Helmand where most of around 4,000 British soldiers in the country are based.

Three British soldiers were killed in Helmand on Tuesday.

Troops and police have killed around 1,000 rebels in a major operation in the south over the past few months.

More than 60 foreign soldiers and scores of Afghan civilians and security forces have also been killed in combat.