22 militants killed in Afghanistan within day

KABUL - Twenty-two militants have been killed during military operations in different Afghan provinces within the last 24 hours, said the country's Interior Ministry on Monday morning.

"Afghan National Police (ANP) with the cooperation of army, intelligence service and coalition forces conducted several cleanup operations in Nangarhar, Sari Pul, Jowzjan, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Logar, Paktiya, Farah, Helmand and Nimroz provinces over the last 24 hours. As a result 22 armed Taliban were killed and nine other Taliban were detained," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates. ?

The ANP also found and seized weapons and defused bombs, the statement said, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.

The Afghan security forces have intensified operations against Taliban and other militant groups recently. But the insurgent groups responded by bombings.

Earlier on Monday morning, a suicide bomber was shot dead in central Kabul.

"One suicide attacker wearing a military uniform was killed by National Directorate of Security (NDS) personnel early Monday morning in Sedarat Square in central Kabul," the NDS or intelligence service said in a statement.

He tried to assault NDS office building and the suicide vest was defused by security forces, it noted. ?

In northern Kunduz province, a suicide attacker was killed when his explosive jacket went off prematurely earlier Monday morning.

The killed militants were riding a motorcycle along a road in Dasht-e-Archi district in the province 250 km north of Kabul and no civilian was harmed in the bombing, the district administrative chief Sheikh Sadruddin told Xinhua. The target of the attacker remained unknown.

The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.