Eighteen militants have been killed and 22 others detained in a series of operations in different Afghan provinces within the last 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
"Up to 18 armed Taliban have been killed and 22 others captured in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Zabul, Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, Paktiya and Helmand provinces when Afghan National Police (ANP), supported by army and the NATO-led coalition troops, conducted cleanup operations over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement.
The ANP also seized weapons and defused several Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the statement said, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
Earlier on Tuesday, 13 Taliban militants were killed in two separate blasts when the IEDs they were placing to target security forces went off prematurely in Gilan district of eastern Ghazni province, said Nazifullah Sultanzay an Afghan army spokesman in eastern region.
