Taliban vow new attack after 12 militants killed

The insurgents died in a day-long battle with Afghan and US-led forces in the southeastern province of Paktia on Monday which ended with US helicopter gunships and tankbuster jets being called in, Afghan officials said.

Two US servicemen were also injured in the firefight, the US-led coalition said. The target of the attack -- Kheyal Baaz Khan Sherzai, the former commander of neighbouring Khost province -- survived.

Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdul Latif Hakimi said only one of its fighters had died and Sherzai remained on the ousted Islamic regime's hit list.

"Our Mujahideen are back and safe in their origins. Khan Sherzai is our target, he survived this time but we will get him soon," Hakimi told AFP by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

"He will face the music."

The bloody battle came amid a renewed spring offensive by the Taliban, who have emerged from Afghanistan's harshest winter for a decade to launch a string of recent attacks on US and Afghan forces.

More than 18,000 US-led forces, including some 2,000 American airmen, are based in the country to help root out the remnants of the Taliban. The US-led coalition ousted the Islamic regime in late 2001.

Afghan officials said 12 suspected Taliban were killed when US aircraft were called in to help after Sherzai was ambushed on a road between Kabul and Gardez, the capital of Paktia province.