MANARA, Afghanistan — Corpses lay stinking in the shade of mulberry trees and in the ruins of a collapsed storehouse.
Villagers rushed home to see whether their livestock had died in the heat. Afghan soldiers placed red signs warning of bombs planted alongside the road.
With the battle in Arghandab valley apparently over, grim signs remained Friday of the fight government and NATO troops waged against Taliban militants who had crept within range of Afghanistan’s second-largest city.
The grinding violence that has plagued the country for much of the past three decades persisted elsewhere Friday, with suicide attacks and a roadside bomb killing five civilians and two members of the U.S.-led coalition.
The advance of up to 400 militants on Arghandab last week raised particular alarm because it is considered a potential springboard for attacks on Kandahar, the Taliban’s capital until U.S. bombs drove the Islamic militia from power in late 2001.
Hundreds of government and NATO troops launched their counter-strike Wednesday.
Two days later, the provincial governor escorted reporters through army checkpoints on the 10-mile route from Kandahar to witness the aftermath.
In the village of Manara, an Associated Press reporter counted 19 bodies, some of them missing limbs. Some were piled in a mud-brick storehouse, which was missing its roof. Others lay prone in an alleyway beside a tree-shaded stream.
Afghan and French soldiers pointed to a 3-foot-deep crater in a nearby field and to broken and scorched trees as evidence of an airstrike. There was no sign of a gun battle, though residents of other villages reported hearing heavy fire.
NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco said the fighting was over by early Thursday. He said there had been only small ground skirmishes, though an alliance helicopter had returned fire against gunmen in one incident and warplanes carried out “very limited” airstrikes.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said 56 militants were killed in all. Two Afghan soldiers also died. However, Gov. Asadullah Khalid said Friday that militants were killed in about 10 locations and that the death toll was more than 100.
He said villagers reported some militants spoke the Pashto dialect of tribes from across the border in Pakistan, who are suspected of harboring Afghan insurgents as well as al-Qaeda leaders and sending volunteers of their own.
“We want to tell the Taliban, especially the Pakistani Taliban, that if they come again they will get the same treatment,” Khalid said.
Din Mohammed, a farmer returning to Manara with 12 relatives, said Taliban fighters had been bent on combat.
“They said they wanted to fight the Afghan and foreign forces,” he said. “I asked them what should I do, but they said they didn’t care, so I left everything, my land, my possessions, my animals.
“Last night I heard on the radio that the Taliban were either dead or gone, so we came home,” he said.
