Afghan troops kill Taliban rebels after ambush

KABUL March 25 (Reuters) - Afghan forces killed and wounded a number of Taliban militants after fighting off an ambush in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Taliban insurgents have vowed to intensify attacks on Afghan and foreign troops countrywide, launch a wave of suicide bombings and attack supply lines from Pakistan this year in their campaign to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government.

Taliban fighters ambushed an Afghan army patrol in the Mizan district of Zabul province on Monday, the Defence Ministry said.

"The operation is still going on and we are assessing information about the precise figure of enemy casualties," said Defence Ministry spokesman Zahir Murad.

Also in Zabul province, the Taliban killed an Afghan civilian accused of spying for NATO troops, a spokesman for the hardline Islamist movement said.

Elsewhere, four Afghan policemen and two civilians were killed when the Taliban ambushed their vehicle in the Ghoryan district of Herat province close to western border with Iran on Monday, a senior police official said.

Some 6,000 people, around a third of them civilians, were killed in fighting in Afghanistan last year. (Writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Alex Richardson)