Nato forces have reportedly killed up to 22 Taliban fighters in an air strike in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar.
Residents said at least one woman was also killed in the raid yesterday evening in Zari district, southwest of the provincial capital, Kandahar city.
They said cluster bombs were dropped in the attack on the district, scene of a major Nato offensive in September in which hundreds of Taliban were killed.
A Nato official in Kabul said 20 insurgents were killed in yesterday's raid, but had no further details. District police chief Ghulam Rasool said 22 rebels died.
The Taliban said only two guerrillas were killed in the air strike, which they said followed an ambush of Nato vehicles in the province, the birthplace of the radical Islamist movement.
Afghanistan this year is going through its bloodiest phase of violence since the Taliban's were ousted by the US in the wake of the September 11 thattacks in 2001.
More than 3,100 people, about a third of them civilians, have been killed in the Taliban-led insurgency and operations by foreign forces this year.
Nato assumed full security responsibility of Afghanistan from the US-led coalition in September, the biggest military operation in the alliance's history.