Warplanes of US-led forces in Afghanistan pounded Taliban positions in remote central mountains today while government troops captured dozens of suspected rebels.
More than 450 Afghan government troops and dozens of US soldiers backed by aircraft were chasing up to 600 Taliban guerrillas in the Dai Chopan region of the restive Zabul province, a local police spokemsman said.
About 40 suspects had been detained, although there might be innocent villagers among them, he added.
There had been no contact with the Taliban fighters since Saturday, when five government soldiers were killed in an ambush by a group of guerrillas who lost four men in an ensuing skirmish.
Police described the Taliban force scattered over rugged terrain as one of the biggest concentrations since the fundamentalist Muslim group was overthrown in a US-led campaign in late 2001.
He said it included fighters blamed for attacks in Zabul and neighbouring Uruzgan province on Friday and Saturday.
Among them was thought to be Dadullah, one of the Taliban's top commanders accused of ordering the execution of a foreign Red Cross worker this year, he said.
The operation in Dai Chopan follows a surge in violence in the past two weeks across Afghanistan in which more than 100 people have been killed, many in attacks blamed on a resurgent Taliban.
A 12,500 US-led force hunting remnants of the Taliban and their allies in the al-Qaeda network has had only limited success and the location of key leaders of both groups remain unknown. They include Taliban leader Mullah Omar and al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden.