29 militants killed in Afghan raids within 24 hours: Govt

Afghan army and police supported by the NATO-led coalition forces have eliminated 29 armed Taliban militants and detained 45 others during different operations started on Tuesday, the country's Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

"Afghan National Police (ANP), army and the coalition forces conducted several clearance operations over the past 24 hours, killing 29 armed Taliban and detaining 45 other armed suspects," the ministry said in a statement.

Eight other militants were wounded during the operations conducted in Baghlan, Kapisa, Badakhshan, Sari Pul, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Paktiya and Helmand provinces, it noted.

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

Figures released by the ministry showed nearly 400 insurgents had been killed and over 230 others detained during military operations since beginning this month across the country.

Earlier on Wednesday, four people, including three school girls, were wounded when two back-to-back Improvised Explosive Devices ( IEDs) went off near a girl school in Ghazni city, the provincial capital of eastern Ghazni province 120 km south of capital Kabul.

However, a militant, who used a remote-control device to initiate the blasts, was killed by ANP in a exchange of fire shortly after the explosions, the provincial deputy police chief Assadullha Insafi told Xinhua.

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