In a gunbattle in a village near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan's Paktika province, US troops apparently killed Raz Mohammed, described by a US commander as a "high-level Taliban."

"Coalition troops were fired on by Raz Mohammed and other Taliban forces when they attempted to capture Mohammed, who was wanted for questioning," the US military said in a statement. Two other militants also died, it added.

As an afterthought, the statement said that an Afghan woman and two children were also killed in the firefight, along with an Afghan soldier supporting coalition forces.

In other violence, Taliban remnants attacked three Afghan checkpoints near the Pakistani border late March 22 and fired a string of rockets at the US base in Salerno in the neighboring province of Khost. (AFP, March 24)

Ongoing chaos in Afghanitsan recently prompted President Hamid Karzai to postpone upcoming elections.