The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kabul

NATO and US-led troops backed up by warplanes have killed more than 120 Taliban insurgents in two major batles in southern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

One soldier was killed, a trooper with the 15,000-strong US-led coalition who died during a day-long gun batle in the restive province of Helmand on Tuesday.

Around 60 rebels were killed in that batle, the coalition said, adding that air power was also used. The fighting erupted during an Afghan and coalition patrol aimed at clearing an area near the Taliban-controlled district centre of Musa Qala in Helmand. "The initial estimate by the ground force commander assessed that more than 61 insurgents were killed in the engagement," the statement said. The figures could not be verified independently.

More than 65 rebels were killed late Tuesday in a similar batle in the south-central province of Uruzgan, another hotbed for the Taliban insurgents, 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 Taliban positions, killing more than 65 insurgents," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) statement said.

There have been several major clashes in southern Afghanistan in the past few weeks during which scores of rebels have been killed.

The nationality of the latest foreign soldier to be killed was not announced by the US-dominated coalition.

With the new death, 173 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, most in combat operations against militants, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

An American, Canadian, French and two Spanish soldiers have been killed in action since Friday, while an Italian intelligence officer was severely wounded in an operation Monday that freed him and a colleague from Taliban kidnappers. The Musa Qala district centre has become one of the Taliban's most significant strongholds since the rebels overran the small town in February.

"The end is near for the Taliban that believe Musa Qala is safe from Islamic Republic of Afghanistan forces," coalition spokesman Major Chris Belcher said in a statement about the latest fighting.

"This combined operation is just one more step to securing the Musa Qala area of the Helmand province," he said.

The NATO force reported meanwhile that one of its helicopters overturned in the western province of Badghis late Tuesday while trying to land during a mission to rescue Afghan police wounded in a bombing. No ISAF staff were hurt during the incident, which did not involve hostile activity, it said in a statement The Taliban reportedly claimed the chopper was shot down.

The bomb blast killed three Afghan police and wounded four more, ISAF said.

A second helicopter was able recover the crew of the damaged helicopter and two critically wounded Afghan police.

The Taliban were driven from government six years ago and are waging an insurgency that has intensified this year with almost daily atacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

In other incidents reported Wednesday, two rebels were killed when a bomb they were planting on a road in southern Ghazni province went off on Tuesday, the defence ministry said.

And more than 36 Taliban insurgents -- 16 of them badly wounded -- were captured by Afghan forces after two separate batles in the eastern province of Paktia and central Wardak on Tuesday, officials said.

AFP, Yangon

Security forces fired warning shots and tear gas canisters while hauling Buddhist monks away in trucks Wednesday as they tried to stop anti-government demonstrations in defiance of a ban on assembly.

The junta had banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a nightime curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks in Yangon and other areas of the country, including the biggest protests in nearly two decades.A march toward the center of Yangon followed a tense confrontation at the city's famed Shwedagon Pagoda between the protesters and riot police who fired warning shots into the air, beat some monks and dragged others away into waiting trucks. Tear gas also was used.

The latest developments could further alienate already isolated Myanmar from the international community and put pressure on China, Myanmar's top economic and diplomatic supporter, which is keen to burnish its international image before next year's Olympics in Beijing.

Reuters, Hanoi

A bridge under construction collapsed in southern Vietnam on Wednesday, killing at least 60 workers, and 100 others were missing, a contractor and police said.

State-run Vietnam TV showed footage of the damage to the collapsed concrete and steel structure in Can Tho City and reported that people were still trapped in the rubble.

A contractor with China State Construction Engineering Corp, one of the firms involved in the construction of the bridge, said by telephone that 60 people were dead.

"They are still pulling out bodies from the rubble, I could hear the screams," the contractor said from Can Tho, which is 170 km (105 miles) south of the commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City.

Police said there were about 100 workers directly under the section of the bridge over the Hau river where the scaffolding collapsed at about 08:30 a.m.

AFP, Islamabad

Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhuto's party fielded a presidential candidate against Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday, saying that the military ruler was no longer capable of tackling Al-Qaeda. The embatled General Musharraf, a key US ally in the "war on terror", now faces two rivals in the polls on October 6, dashing his hopes of winning a second five-year term as president unopposed. Pakistan's Supreme Court meanwhile is hearing opposition legal challenges arguing that Musharraf is ineligible for the election while he remains army chief, with a decision expected imminently. Bhuto, who is set to return from self-exile next month, piled on pressure when she said that her Pakistan People's Party was nominating its vice chairman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, to stand against Musharraf.