More than 20 said dead in Afghan attack

By Robert Birsel

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan and U.S.-led forces have inflicted heavy casualties on insurgents in a battle, the Afghan Defence Ministry said on Monday, but a provincial official said more than 20 civilians, not rebels, had been killed.

The U.S. military and the Defence Ministry said there were no reports of civilian casualties in the battle against fighters of a pro-Taliban militant faction on Sunday in the eastern province of Nuristan near the Pakistani border.

But Rahmatullah Rashidi, head of a legislative provincial council in Nuristan, said Taliban had been in the area but had fled, and civilians were killed in U.S. bombing.

The fighting erupted during an Afghan army-led operation to clear insurgents from villages in the remote province and included air strikes by the U.S.-led force, the U.S. military said.

The Defence Ministry said one Afghan soldier had been killed while the insurgents had suffered heavy casualties.

"There was a great deal of enemy fire being taken. It was a tough fight," said U.S. military spokeswoman Lieutenant-Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green.

U.S.-led coalition troops called in aircraft which bombed positions that "contained large numbers of heavily armed insurgents", the U.S. military said, while referring questions on the casualty toll to Afghan authorities.

Insurgents supporting the Hezb-e Islami faction led by former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is allied with the Taliban and al Qaeda, operated in the area, it said.