KANDAHAR: About 100 militants were killed in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, half in air strikes that thwarted a major attack on a key town overnight, Afghan and British forces said on Sunday.

The attempt to enter Lashkar Gah from three directions was “virtually unprecedented” in the area in the scale of the attacking force and their degree of coordination, British military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Woody Page said.

Between 50 and 60 militants, part of a group of 150 that had been seen massing outside of the town for several days, were killed in air strikes that stopped them from entering Lashkar Gah, the Afghan and British forces said. Around 40 more were killed in a three-day operation in the nearby Nad Ali district that wound up on Saturday, they said.

It was impossible to independently verify the tolls from the battles in Helmand. “We knew they were massing outside of the city,” Page told AFP, adding: “The operation that was launched last night was deliberately launched to defeat them outside Lashkar Gah.”

He said about 50 of the attackers were killed while a spokesman for the Helmand government, Daud Ahmadi, put the death toll at 62. “Last night they attacked from three directions to divide and keep our forces busy,” Ahmadi said. “The joint forces of Nato, Afghan army and police fought them,” he added. Groups of dead bodies had been left at various places, he said. “Our information suggests that 62 Taliban were killed. This figure might rise even higher,” he said. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a “major insurgent attack” had been thwarted.