LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Seven local Taliban leaders
were killed and a shadowy district governor detained following an air raid
operation in southern Afghan province of Helmand overnight, a provincial police
spokesman said Sunday.

"Based on intelligence, a warplane with the NATO-led coalition forces
carried out an airstrike against a Taliban hideout in Trikh Nawar area of
Naway-i- Barakzai district in the wee hours Sunday, killing seven insurgents'
leaders including Mullah Hazrat and Mullah Yasin," police spokesman Farid
Ahmad Farhang told Xinhua.

He said a joint Afghan and coalition forces unit launched a post-strike
assessment operation, detaining the Taliban shadowy governor for the district
named Mullah Ahmad Mubarak, who got injured in the attack in the province 555
km south of Afghan capital Kabul.

The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one
decade, have yet to confirm the death of the insurgent commanders.

Notorious for growing poppy and militancy, the Helmand province has been
branded as Taliban hotbed in the restive southern part of insurgency-hit
country.

The last of 33,000 U.S. additional forces, which were deployed to
Afghanistan in early 2010 with the aim of pushing back the Taliban-led
insurgency, have withdrawn from Afghanistan, the U.S. military announced on
Friday.