Troops kill 55 Taliban after Afghan ambush

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition troops killed some 55 Taliban insurgents who ambushed them in southeastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border, the U.S. military said on Monday.

There has been a sharp rise in violence along Afghanistan's eastern frontier in recent months. NATO generals say de-facto ceasefires between Pakistan's new government and militants in its border region free up insurgents to infiltrate into Afghanistan.

Taliban insurgents ambushed the coalition forces with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in the Zerok district of Paktika province on Friday, a U.S. military statement said.

Among those killed were three Taliban leaders.

"Around 55 anti-Afghan forces were killed, 25 wounded and three detained as part of the combined response of coalition ground and air forces," the statement said.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the U.S.-led coalition force in Afghanistan do not usually disclose Taliban casualties and normally use vague formulations such as saying "several" militants were killed.

In another incident, a suicide car bomber killed five civilians and wounded 25 more on Monday in an attack targeting a NATO-led convoy in western Afghanistan, a regional army commander, Jalandar Shah Benaam, said.

The bomber struck in the Shindand district of Herat province, the district governor, Lal Mohammad, told Reuters. The toll from the explosion could rise, he said.

The target was an Italian troop convoy patrolling the area, regional police spokesman Abdul Rahoof Ahmadi said.