KABUL — Two NATO service members died Friday in roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan, while allied and Afghan forces killed three senior Taliban figures and captured 11 fighters and sympathizers, the alliance said.
Also Friday, a roadside bomb killed four civilians and wounded one in the Tirin Kot district of Uruzgan province, about 250 miles southwest of Kabul, the Interior Ministry said.
The bloodshed comes despite efforts by the Obama administration and other governments to establish a peace process with the Taliban to help end the 10-year war. A senior administration official has told The Associated Press that Washington plans to continue a series of secret meetings with Taliban representatives in Europe and the Persian Gulf region next year.
President Hamid Karzai said this week that his government would accept the Taliban opening a liaison office in Turkey, Qatar or Saudi Arabia in order to hold peace talks.
A NATO statement said an operation this week in Bakwah district in Farah province resulted in the killing of a senior Taliban leader and two of his commanders, as well as a “number of additional insurgents.”
Early Friday, NATO and Afghan troops captured 11 Taliban fighters or sympathizers who provided logistical support and weapons to insurgents in five operations across the country, it said.
Nighttime kill-and-capture raids, in which a number of civilians have died, have become a flashpoint for anger in Afghanistan. Karzai has demanded that foreign troops stop breaking into homes.
The deaths Friday bring the December toll for NATO troops killed in Afghanistan to 27, while the year’s toll so far is 543. The total is lower than for 2010, when 700 troops died.
This year marked the high point of the international military presence in Afghanistan, with more than 140,000 troops on the ground.
