Three Canadian soldiers serving with Nato forces have been killed during a major offensive that also killed scores of Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman said today.
Nato lost 14 British military personnel, who died when a Royal Air Force Nimrod MR2 spyplane crashed yesterday while the alliance and Afghan forces mounted Operation Medusa in Panjwai district of Kandahar province.
Hundreds of troops, backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships, were involved in the offensive on the area, southwest of Kandahar city, that has been a centre of Taliban resistance.
"The reports we have received from the battle ground says 89 Taliban have been killed since yesterday," Defence Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said.
"Three Canadian soldiers have been killed and six wounded in the fighting," he added.
The operation was the biggest by Nato since it took over command of the southern region on July 31 from US-led coalition forces, Major Scott Lundy, a spokesman for the alliance, said.
A Nato statement released from Kandahar Airfield said dozens of insurgents had been killed and many more wounded by the end of the first day of fighting.
Officials said the Nimrod's crash was caused by a technical problem, though the Taliban claimed its fighters shot down the plane with a Stinger missile.