Taliban fighters captured a
district in mountainous southern Afghanistan, police said Tuesday, in the latest in an upsurge
of militant strikes that have killed scores of people.
The interior ministry announced meanwhile that 10
civilians and up to 60 Taliban were killed in days of fighting in southern Uruzgan province but rejected claims by locals that dozens more were killed in NATO bombing raids.The interior ministry confirmed Tuesday that police had left the area. "It was a temporary tactical withdrawal," ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP. "We plan to retake the
district by launching an operation."He dismissed a claim by the Taliban that 10 policemen had been killed.Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP the police had fled into the mountains after being under siege for two days."Finally last night at 10:00 pm we totally captured the district centre," he said. The rebels were in control of the district administration offices and had taken possession of government vehicles and weapons.NATO''s International Security Assistance Force said it was ready to help the Afghan military retake Myanishen. "We can confirm that the Taliban are now in control of the district centre," spokesman Major John Thomas said.The insurgents -- waging a battle to reclaim Afghanistan, which was governed by the Taliban between 1996 and 2001 -- have overrun several district centres in the south and west but have usually been pushed out after a few days.They have however have held for months Musa Qala district in Helmand province, which adjoins Uruzgan and Kandahar, and are said to control several others in the area.The captured district adjoins Chora in Uruzgan province, where local officials alleged Monday that scores of civilians had been killed in three days of fighting, including NATO bombardments, to dislodge a group of Taliban.Bashary said Tuesday 10 civilians and four policemen had been killed by the Taliban and "50 to 60 enemy elements" were also dead. He said claims that scores more civilians had died in bombing raids were "not true."Uruzgan provincial council chief Mawlawi Hamdullah told AFP late Monday that accounts from the area suggested around 60 civilians may have been killed, most of them in bombing raids.About 100 people were in a hospital in the provincial capital Tirin Kot but there were others wounded who were not able to leave Chora, he said, calling for helicopters to be sent to the district to airlift them out."There are no reports of fighting now," ISAF''s Thomas said. "It seems to be over but that doesn''t mean the situation is calm."Unrest linked to the Taliban insurgency has peaked in the past few days with the insurgents'' deadliest attack in Kabul on Sunday killing 35 people, most of them police training instructors. It was the fifth suicide bombing in the country in three days. Most were aimed at foreign security forces but killed more civilians, who are increasingly becoming victims in the fight for Afghanistan.Seven children were killed late Sunday in an air strike by the US-led coalition force targeted at Al-Qaeda fighters in the east of the country. Days earlier five children died in a Taliban suicide blast in Tirin Ko . A group of nearly 100 foreign and Afghan non-governmental organisations remonstrated troops for civilian casualties Tuesday, saying they had killed nearly 250 civilians this year.The Agency Coordinating Body For Afghan Relief also accused troops of "excessive use of force and abusive raids," and acting on false or inaccurate information.