Afghan, NATO troops kill 20 Taliban in operation

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 20 Taliban fighters and wounded another nine in an operation west of the main southern city of Kandahar, the provincial police chief said on Monday.

The Zherai district, west of Kandahar, is a hotbed of Taliban activity that has been fought over many times between insurgents and Afghan and mainly Canadian troops. Some villages have changed hands several times.

Kandahar police chief Sayed Aqa Saqeb said the bodies of 20 Taliban fighters were still at the scene of the fighting in the operation which began four days ago. Nine Taliban were wounded and four of those were captured, he said.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a remote-controlled mine killed a man, his wife and three children travelling on a motorcycle in the south central province of Uruzgan on Sunday, the provincial police chief said.

In the capital Kabul, police shot dead a man they suspected of being a suicide bomber close to the airport on Monday, the Interior Ministry said.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year, with more than 20 percent more attacks than 2006, killing at least 5,000 people.

The hardline Islamist Taliban relaunched their insurgency to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign forces two years ago with a campaign of guerrilla war in the south and east, combined with suicide attacks across the country.

The violence has undermined confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai and his Western allies to provide security and development more than six years after the Taliban were toppled from power for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. (Reporting by Ismail Sameem; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Rosalind Russell)