Pat Dollard | Young Americans

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan troops backed by foreign soldiers and airpower killed about 70 Taliban fighters in raids close to the Pakistan border authorities said Saturday.

U.S.-led troops and Afghan security forces raided compounds late Friday in three villages in the remote Pitigal Valley border region, where intelligence has shown that top militant leaders take refuge as they travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition said.

More than 20 insurgents were killed and 11 others were detained, and officers discovered a bomb-making factory, the coalition said in a statement.

Afghan authorities have accused Pakistan in the past of not doing enough to prevent the movement of militants across the border to attack Afghan and foreign troops in the country. Pakistan says it has deployed tens of thousands of the troops along the volatile frontier to stem the flow of militants.

In the central province of Ghazni, where insurgents recently released a group of South Korean church workers they had been holding, Afghan police attacked a group of Taliban planning to strike security forces, killing 18 and arresting six others, said provincial police Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadai. A coalition statement said the operation was meant to target “a militant responsible for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters,” but did not say if the militant was among those killed.

The statement also said the raid resulted in the seizure of mortar and artillery rounds, numerous hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and other ammunition.

Taliban militants abducted 23 South Koreans in Ghazni six weeks ago. They killed two male hostages, released two women last month and freed the final 19 last week after holding unprecedented negotiations with the Korean government.

In the Musa Qala district in southern Helmand province, a combined police and coalition patrol came under attack on Friday from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, the coalition said in a statement. In the fight that ensued, almost two dozen insurgents were killed.

No Afghan or coalition soldiers, or civilians, were killed, the statement said.

Also in Musa Qala, Afghan forces Saturday called in coalition airstrikes after coming under attack, the coalition said. Seven insurgents were killed, the statement said.

It was not possible to independently verify any of the death tolls because travel to the areas is extremely dangerous. Taliban commanders were not available for comment.

Parts of Musa Qala have been under the control of Taliban militants for months. The region has seen several weeks of bloody combat.

The Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan from the mid-1990s until 2001, imposing an extreme version of Islam and harboring al-Qaida leaders and thousands of other Muslim militants from around the world.

They were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but are now leading an increasingly bloody campaign against the country’s Western-backed government.

More than 4,200 people—most of them terrorists —have been killed so far this year, according to an Associated Press count.