Kabul, Sept 10 (ZEENEWS.COM) NATO-led troops in a major offensive in southern Afghanistan killed around 50 insurgents in the past 24 hours using air strikes and artillery and gun fire, the force said today.

About 30 were killed in the past 12 hours and 20 on Friday as part of Operation Medusa, which was launched a week ago to drive militants out of a stronghold in Kandahar rovince, the birthplace of the Taliban movement, it said.

"We are engaging with everything from direct fire to artillery and airstrikes," an official with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, announcing the 30 latest deaths.

The killings took the number of militants killed in Operation Medusa to more than 350. Five Canadian soldiers have also been killed, one by accident when he was strafed by a US aircraft.

Fourteen British airmen died on the first day of the operation when their reconnaissance plane crashed in the Panjwayi area due to a technical fault.

Much of Afghanistan's Taliban-linked violence is in the south, the heartland of the movement and where the ISAF took command of 10,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops on July 31.

The Taliban have waged a growing campaign this year against foreign and Afghan troops mainly in south Afghanistan. The regime was toppled from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The group claimed responsibility for a suicide blast in the capital Kabul Friday that killed two US soldiers and 14 Afghans.