U.S.-led forces kill 9 militants in Afghanistan

A U.S. soldier keeps watch at the site where Taliban militants set fire to a convoy of supply trucks in Ghazni, southeast of Afghanistan June 24, 2008.

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops killed nine militants in overnight clashes in southern and central Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan with some 3,800 people, a third of them civilians, killed by the end of July this year.

In the latest fighting, U.S.-led coalition troops killed four militants including two al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Ghazni province on Friday, about 200 km (125) miles southwest of Kabul. Two other suspects were detained.

"The al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders were known weapons and foreign fighter facilitators," the U.S. military said.

Five Taliban insurgents were killed in an operation in the southern province of Kandahar, the U.S. military said in another statement.

The escalating violence has prompted some in the Afghan government and its allies to consider talks with the Taliban insurgents to end the war.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)