KABUL - US-led troops and Afghan security forces on Sunday killed a 'significant' number of militants, the coalition said, a day after 15 Taleban were killed in attacks in the south.

The coalition did not give an exact toll but a local MP said the battle in eastern Nuristan province, in which warplanes were also deployed, left 20 people dead including some civilians.

'The combined force repelled the attack with accurate small-arms fire and crew-served weapons. During the long battle, the insurgents reinforced their positions in several compounds with large groups of fighters,' a statement by the US-led coalition said.

The statement said the fighters were members of Hizb-e-Islami, an outlawed militant group loyal to the former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is said to have joined the Taleban.

It added that there were no civilian casualties.

The Afghan defence ministry also confirmed the operation, saying 'the enemy suffered heavy casualties.' It said one Afghan soldier was killed and three others were injured in the fighting, which continued late Sunday.

Local lawmaker Rahmatullah Rashidi, however, said civilians were also killed in the coalition air strikes.

'There have been heavy air strikes since last evening,' he said.

'According to the information I received, about 20 people including fighters and civilians have been killed,' Mr Rashidi told AFP.

He said about 40 other people including civilians had been injured.

Security guards killed
In another incident Sunday two security guards escorting a civilian convoy of trucks supplying a Nato base and two Taleban were killed in a firefight in the southern province of Ghazni, a district chief said, while police said a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province killed a policeman.

Earlier, the defence ministry said 15 Taleban insurgents were killed in separate raids by Afghan and Nato troops in the southern province of Kandahar on Saturday.

The interior ministry meanwhile said a senior Taleban commander whom it described as a deputy to Taleban top military commander Mullah Mansoor Dadullah was captured in Kandahar city.

Mansoor Dadullah was captured in Pakistan in February.

The Taleban were ousted from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001. The remnants of the Islamic militia have since waged a bloody insurgency.

About 70,000 international troops, most of them under Nato command, are based in Afghanistan to help the Kabul government battle the insurgency.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday expressed confidence that his government would work closely with the new Pakistani prime minister to fight extremism plaguing both countries.

And he said he was 'very satisfied' with the "exceptionally strong backing" the Nato alliance had offered to Kabul at last week's Bucharest summit. -- AFP