Kabul- Dozens of Taliban fighters were killed in a US airstrike in east-central Afghanistan while a British soldier died in a clash with Taliban fighters in the south, officials said Friday.

As many as 40 Taliban fighters were killed in the airstrike in Ghazni province, about 130 kilometres west of Kabul, local officials said.

US planes bombed a group of Taliban who were meeting at a Taliban gathering place near the district centre of Ajristan late Thursday, a spokesman for Ghazni Governor Ismail Jahangir said.

Kabul- Three police officers were killed and four others injured Thursday in a roadside bomb blast in the eastern province of Paktia, officials said.

A remote-controlled bomb exploded and destroyed the their pick-up truck while the police were on patrol in Syed Karam district, Agha Gul Ahmadzai, the district's chief, said.

The wounded, two of them in critical condition, were evacuated to the civil hospital in the provincial capital Gardez city, he added.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying at least six policemen were killed.

Kabul - Afghan President Hamed Karzai ordered an investigation into the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl in northern Sar-e-Pul province, a statement said Wednesday.

Five armed men reportedly forced their way a house, beat the family members and raped the girl, the president's office said.

"The president called it 'villainy and crime against humanity,' and asked the interior minister and deputy head of the Afghan intelligence department to investigate and arrest those involved in the case," the statement said.

Karzai also asked the authorities to submit a report on another similar case that occurred in the same province.

Kabul - Several militants were killed during a US-led coalition forces operation to disrupt militant activities in Wardak province in central Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

Coalition forces searched several compounds in the Sayed Abad district Tuesday targeting a Taliban commander suspected of conducting attacks on coalition forces, including an attack in Wardak on June 26 causing the deaths of three coalition soldiers and an Afghan interpreter, a military statement said.

Kabul - Thousands of members of Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic minority protested Tuesday on the streets of Kabul over a land dispute with the nomadic Kochi tribe.

Hazara leaders charged that a dozen of their people were killed and thousands displaced in Kochi attacks in the central province of Wardak after the nomads entered the Besud district there in recent months in search of grazing land for their livestock.

Hazara people based in the district said the Kochi destroyed their harvest and houses, and this week, Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq, an Afghan lawmaker and leader of the Hazara community, went on hunger strike in protest of what his people have called a land grab.