KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- International and Afghan forces killed 16 Taliban militants in a gunbattle in the country's south, police said Friday. One police officer also died in the fighting. NATO forces confirmed there was a clash in Uruzgan province on Thursday, but spokesman Lt. Commander Christopher Hall said they only had reports of five dead, all of them militants. Uruzgan Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Nabi said the NATO and Afghan forces also arrested one armed insurgent in the battle waged through most of Thursday, and captured a handful of guns and four motorbikes. Asked about the lower death toll given by NATO, Nabi said he had confirmed reports from the ground of the 17 dead. Meanwhile, a university student in the capital of neighboring Kandahar province was found dead with his throat cut on Friday morning in a side room of a mosque where he had gone to study. Sadullah Khan, a police official in Kandahar City, said they were investigating the death of the third-year medical student, but did not yet have any information on who might have been behind the killing.
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