NATO kills several Taliban in air strikes

KABUL (Reuters) - Western forces in Afghanistan said they killed six to eight militants in air strikes during a joint operation in Wardak province on the southwestern outskirts of the capital Kabul on Friday.

Some 3,000 U.S. troops were rushed this year to the provinces of Wardak and neighboring Logar, where insurgent attacks had risen sharply last year and bringing the Taliban to the capital's edge in large numbers for the first time since 2001.

A spokesman for the NATO-led force that includes the U.S. troops in the area said the air strikes were called in to back up a joint operation with Afghan and Western troops.

A Taliban spokesman in the area, Zabiullah Mujahed, contacted a Reuters reporter and said eight people were killed including militants and four civilians. None of the figures could be immediately independently verified.

General Abdul Hakim, an Afghan intelligence officer in Wardak province, said the ground forces called for close air support when they saw militants massing in the Chak Wardak district some 55 km (35) southwest of the capital.

He said 60 fighters had been killed in the strikes, but that figure was denied by both NATO and the Taliban.

(Reporting by Sher Ahmad; Writing by Hamid Shalizi, Editing by Bill Tarrant)