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At least 40 suspected insurgents were killed in a spate of rare wintertime clashes in Afghanistan, including an airstrike which killed 25 people, NATO officials said. NATO's statement, issued late Saturday, provided few details about the latest deadly military operations that preceded the airstrike in the Nari district of Konar province. An air weapons team shot at suspected insurgents after NATO soldiers "reported an imminent threat," the Washington Post quoted the statement, as saying. Meanwhile, in Darah-ye Pech district, NATO soldiers came under attack from rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire while attempting to deactivate a bomb, military officials said. The soldiers shot back, "killing numerous insurgents," the statement added. Afghan authorities said NATO soldiers also killed seven civilians employed by a private security company early Saturday during an operation in the southeastern province of Paktia . It is noteworthy that the violence occurred days before the Obama administration is due to receive an assessment from US agencies of the state of the war, a year after it authorized the dispatch to Afghanistan of an additional 30,000 troops.

Dozens of Afghan insurgents killed in NATO operations