Updated on Friday, July 03, 2009, 23:37 IST

Kandahar, July 03: Afghanistan's insurgent Taliban said on Friday it had not started directly fighting against Britain and US operations under way in Helmand province but was using guerrilla tactics.

About 4,000 US Marines were inserted into Taliban strongholds in the south of the province yesterday while hundreds of British soldiers are continuing an operation launched two weeks ago north of the town of Lashkar Gah.

Taliban spokesman Yosuf Ahmadi said the militants had planted mines in various roads to meet the troops and that some vehicles had been blown up, causing several casualties.

The military has said two British soldiers were killed in a bomb blast on Wednesday and a Marine in hostile fire on yesterday.

"We are trying not to engage with them too soon because there are a lot of them and they would use air force in which case there will be civilian casualties," Ahmadi said.

"So far we did not start any fight with them face to face but we are conducting our own guerrilla clashes, especially in Nawa and Garmsir," he said.

Ahmadi also dismissed the operations saying they would fail "like the ones they had before".

Bureau Report