KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. special forces and Afghan troops called in airstrikes during a raid on a militant cell in western Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 15 insurgents while freeing 15 hostages, officials said.
NATO, meanwhile, said its troops in the south have killed a senior Taliban commander, while the U.S.-led coalition reported its forces along with Afghan security forces killed “several militants” in the same region.
Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said 15 militants, including two Taliban commanders, were killed during the operation in the western province of Herat.
The raid comes amid concerns that the Taliban-led insurgency is gaining, not losing, momentum seven years after the hard-line Islamic regime was ousted from Afghanistan by a U.S.-led invasion.
Violence has been on the rise, and just this week militants penetrated an American outpost in the east, killing nine U.S. soldiers.
In response to the increased bloodshed, Pentagon leaders have said they are looking for ways to send additional troops to Afghanistan this year.
The Defense Department also announced it will send close to 800 more bomb-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan.
The hulking vehicles, known as MRAPs, protect U.S. personnel from the powerful blasts of roadside bombs, the No. 1 cause of combat deaths and injuries in Iraq. The improvised explosive devices are a growing threat in Afghanistan.
