Kabul  - US-led troops killed a female civilian and nineteen militants in a clash and airstrike in southern Afghanistan, while nine rebels including a senior commander and two policemen were killed in separate attacks, officials said Sunday.

Afghan and coalition forces killed 17 insurgents during an airstrike in Shah Wali Kot district of southern Kandahar province on Saturday, US military said in a statement.

The combined forces received small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades as they targeted a "safe haven" of insurgents in the area, the statement said.

The joint forces "returned fire with (light weapons) and supporting fire on the insurgent fighting positions, killing 17 militants."

The troops also discovered a cache of ammunition and bomb making materials and destroyed them on site, it added.

Meanwhile a woman civilian was killed when coalition forces clashed with militants in Zabul province on Thursday, US military said in a statement. Two militants were killed in the clash.

One male civilian and two other female civilians were wounded in the firefight and taken to a military hospital for treatment, it said.

In a separate incident, Taliban militants attacked the Aab Band district headquarters in southern Ghazni province on Saturday night and wounded a police officer, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir said.

He said the troops killed eight Taliban militants and wounded five others.

Two police forces were killed and three were wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a mine in Andar district of the same Ghazni province, Jahangir said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that forces killed a senior Taliban commander in Garmsir district of southern province of Helmand, ISAF said in a statement.

The statement said commander Mullah Asad was killed on November 19, adding that "Asad was a senior Taliban Operational Commander for Southern Helmand and was linked to numerous attacks in the Garmsir district."

His death came three weeks after another senior commander in Garmsir district, Mullah Mashar, was killed during a similar operation, the statement added.

Separately, US-led forces detained eight suspected militants in an operation that targeted a commander of the Haqqani network, an associate group of Taliban insurgents, on Saturday, the US military said in a statement.

The captured rebels were involved in planning an attack against Afghan and coalition forces in the region, as well as killing civilians who work with the government and foreign forces in the eastern region.

More than 70,000 international troops and over 150,000 Afghan security forces have been battling the resurgent Taliban fighters since the ouster of ultra-Islamic regime in a US invasion in late 2001.

The insurgents led by Islamic students have intensified their attacks on Afghan and foreign forces in country recently.

More than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents, but including hundreds of Afghan and international forces - have been killed in than Afghanistan conflict so far this year. (dpa)