KABUL/ASADABAD/KUNDUZ CITY (PAN): Twenty-two Taliban fighters, were killed in a newly-launched search operation by Afghan forces in southern Ghazni province, officials said on Tuesday.
The offensive targeted insurgent groups operating in Deh Yak and Andar districts, an official with the Afghan army’s 203rd Thunder Military Corps, Lt. Col. Malang Pawzyar, told Pajhwok Afghan News.
Five Taliban groups were eliminated during the 10-day old operation that also resulted in the seizure of weapon depots belonging to the rebels, he said.
Separately, a policeman killed his wife and a teenage son Tuesday morning in Tirinkot,  the capital of  central Uruzgan province.
Ghulam Dastagir, a reserved police, turned his gun on his spouse and the 17-year-old due to a family dispute in Boti Kalacha area, deputy provincial police chief, Col. Mohammad Aslam, said.
The father,  who has two more children from the deceased wife, escaped after the incident.
Police have launched a manhunt to nab the accused, Aslam said.
Meanwhile, six suspected insurgents have been killed in an airstrike in eastern Kunar province and in a drone attack in northern Kunduz, officials said on Tuesday.
Four militants were killed in the airstrike that took place on Monday evening in the Yalgal valley of Ghaziabad district, governor’s spokesman Sher Wali told Pajhwok Afghan News. Another three suspects were injured in the incident, he added.
But a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that none of their comrades had been killed or wounded in Kunar region.
Elsewhere, two people died when a NATO drone fired missiles into the Imam Sahib district in Kunduz, the town’s administrative head, Imaduddin Qureshi, said.
The slain individuals included Qari Noorullah, a local Taliban commander, who was killed along with a comrade, police spokesman Syed Sarwar Hussaini said, though a resident, Juma Din, claimed the victims were civilians.