The Afghan Defense Ministry said in a news release "dozens" of suspected insurgents in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province were killed and a major weapons cache was seized by Afghan and NATO troops, China's Xinhua news agency reported. An exact number of fatalities wasn't reported and Taliban officials gave no immediate response to the report.

Taliban-related violence has killed more than 220 people so far this year, Xinhua said.

Meanwhile, a BBC correspondent reported two soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a mine in the southern province of Kandahar. The nationalities of the troops wasn't released. Almost 40 countries have troops in Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led coalition.

Russia's Novosti news agency quoted Afghan government sources as saying more than 6,000 people were killed in violence in the country in 2007, about one-third of them civilians.