AFGHANISTAN: US FORCES KILL 25 TALIBAN AND 8 CIVILIANS

KABUL, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 25 Taliban insurgents and eight civilians after an ambush in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday.

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The issue of civilian casualties has led to a rift between Afghanistan and its Western allies with President Hamid Karzai saying on Sunday that foreign airstrikes had only succeeded in killing ordinary Afghans and would not defeat the insurgency.

The Taliban launched multiple ambushes on a patrol in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province on Sunday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The militants "then fled into a neighbouring compound where they held 11 non-combatants hostage, including several children and an infant," it said.

The insurgents then fired on the coalition forces from the compound and the troops called in an airstrike, but the statement said they did not know there were civilians in the building.

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