KABUL (AFP) -- NATO and U.S.-led troops backed up by warplanes said Wednesday they had killed nearly 170 Taleban in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, while a U.S.-led coalition soldier also died.

The heaviest of the fighting with Taleban erupted on Tuesday in the volatile southern province of Helmand, a Taleban stronghold, and continued into Wednesday, the coalition said.
“The initial estimate by the ground force commander assessed that more than 104 Taleban fighters were killed thus far in the engagement,” it said in a statement. The figures could not be verified independently.
A soldier with the 15,000-strong U.S.-dominated coalition was also killed and four wounded, it said. The nationalities of the foreign soldiers were not announced.
The fighting erupted during an Afghan and coalition patrol aimed at clearing an “extensive trench system” near the Taleban-controlled district centre of Musa Qala in Helmand, Afghanistan’s main opium-growing province.
More than 65 fighters were killed late Tuesday in a similar battle in the neighboring province of Uruzgan, another hotbed for the Taleban, said a separate NATO-led force which has around 40,000 troops.
NATO warplanes and artillery supported the Afghan and NATO forces on the ground, it said.
“Precision-guided munitions were employed on positively identified Taleban positions, killing more than 65 fighters,” the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) statement said..