Two dozen Taliban killed in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Afghan and foreign troops clashed with militants and called in airstrikes on them in southern Afghanistan, killing 24 and wounding 8, an official said Saturday.

In the north a Taliban-era mass grave was discovered, a police spokesman said.

The clashes with militants occurred in two different mountainous areas of Zabul province late Friday, said provincial deputy governor Ghulab Shah Alikheil.

The operation was aimed at militants responsible for Tuesday's ambush of a road construction crew in the province. That attack killed 17 people and 16 others wounded, Alikheil said.

The clashes in the south killed 24 militants and wounded eight. There were no casualties among the Afghan or foreign joint forces, however, he said.

Meanwhile, a Taliban-era grave containing more than 100 bodies of soldiers and civilians was found after it was exposed by weather and erosion in the northern province of Balkh. Area residents had buried the dead after Taliban militants stormed the city in the late 1990s and killed dozens of people, said Sher Jan Durani, spokesman for the provincial police chief.