Clashes kill 165 Taliban fighters

Two battles killed more than 165 suspected Taliban fighters and one US-led coalition soldier in southern Afghanistan as President Hamid Karzai prepared to discuss his country's escalating violence with US President George W. Bush in New York.

An ongoing clash began early on Tuesday when several dozen insurgents attacked a joint coalition-Afghan patrol with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades near the Taliban-controlled town of Musa Qala in Helmand Province, with Taliban reinforcements flowing in all day, a coalition statement said.

The coalition returned artillery fire and called in fighter aircraft, killing more than 100 of the Taliban fighters, the coalition said. One coalition soldier was killed and four wounded.