(Raises toll, adds details of border incident) KABUL, June 23 (Reuters) - Dozens of militants were killed in southern and eastern Afghanistan overnight in clashes with U.S.-led foreign troops and Afghan forces, officials said on Saturday. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said troops clashed with a large group of insurgents near the porous Pakistan border in Paktika province, killing around 40 of them and wounding several others. He said it was the biggest concentration of insurgent strength since January, when over 100 were killed while crossing the border. Full details were still being gathered, he said. Elsewhere, at least 20 suspected Taliban militants were killed in a seven-hour gunbattle in the Sha Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, while several others were killed in at least three other separate engagements, the U.S. military said in a statement. Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent months after a traditional winter lull, with foreign forces launching attacks against Taliban strongholds in the south and east, and the guerrillas hitting back with roadside and suicide bombings. More than 4,000 people were killed in fighting in 2006, a quarter of them civilians and about 170 of them foreign soldiers. "We will intensify our operations to rid Afghanistan of all Taliban fighters who harm innocent Afghan civilians and threaten the government of Afghanistan," said a U.S. military spokesman, Major Chris Belcher. Some 20 militants, meanwhile, were detained in operations early on Saturday against al Qaeda militants at three compounds in Giro district of Ghazni Province, the U.S. military said.
