A joint operation launched by Afghan and coalition forces in southern Zabul province Tuesday left 21 Taliban remnants including two senior commanders dead and 40 others arrested, an official said.

"In today's operation in Dai Chopan 21 Taliban including their senior commanders Mullah Janan and Mullah Jabar were killed and between 35 to 40 others including Mullah Shazada, a leading Taliban commander, were captured," senior security official of Zabul province Ghulam Jilani told Xinhua via telephone.

Dai Chopan, a troubled district in Zabul, has been the scene ofbloody battles between the remnants of fundamentalist Taliban movement and government-coalition troops for the last two weeks.

In Tuesday's operation, according to Jilani, 1,500 Afghan National Army soldiers and US-led coalition troops were involved.

More than 70 Taliban militiamen, according to government officials, have been killed and 14 others captured during the skirmishes over the past two weeks.

In the meantime, Taliban's spokesman rejected the claim as baseless, saying the US-backed Afghan transitional government wanted to keep high the moral of its demoralized soldiers.

Mullah Fateh Mohammad, who claimed to speak for the ousted fundamentalist regime, counted Taliban's casualties at three. Zabul, Uruzgan, Kandahar and Helmand, once a notorious stronghold of Taliban, have been hit by increasing militancy for the last one month in which over 70 people including dozens of rebels and six US soldiers have been killed.

Source: Xinhua