Afghan forces, backed by air power of the NATO-led troops have killed 13 Taliban insurgents including their group commander in the southern Kandahar province, a local police officer said Sunday.

In the operation in Jalai district Saturday night, 13 insurgents including their commander Mullah Abdul Khaliq were killed, provincial police chief Syed Aqa Saqib told Xinhua.

Taliban militants have not made any comment.

Afghan forces, backed by the US-led Coalition troops killed on Saturday over 15 insurgents in a farming compound west of Rawonay in Kandahar, during a hunt for prisoners escaping from Kandahar jail, the Coalition said in an earlier statement.

Escalating insurgency-related violence and conflicts left 8,000 people, mostly rebels, dead last year in Afghanistan.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2008)