20 Taliban fighters killed

Tajikistan's security authorities said on Saturday that they had killed at least 20 Taliban fighters and lost one officer in a clash,involving grenades and automatic weapons, along the border with Afghanistan.

Khushnud Rakhmatullayev, a spokesman for Tajikistan's border patrol, said the rebels were killed while attempting to enter the Central Asian republic from the northern provinces of Afghanistan, where NATO-led forces are conducting operations against the Taliban.