KABUL, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Afghan Air Force in chasing militants have conducted series of sorties in the southern and northern provinces, killing more than 60 armed insurgents and injuring scores of others over the past 24 hours, officials said Thursday.

In the latest waves of airstrikes, the Afghan fighting aircrafts pounded a Taliban hideout in the outskirts of Tirin Kot, the capital of the southern Uruzgan province in the wee hours of Thursday, killing 17 insurgents and injuring countless others, an army spokesman in the southern region Mohammad Sadeq Eisa said.

A weapon cache of the militants was also destroyed in the raids, the official added.

Similarly, the Afghan Air Force targeted Taliban hideouts in Shalghami and Qala-e-Shamir areas of Maiwand district in Uruzgan's neighboring Kandahar province on Wednesday night, killing 18 militants and injuring 11 others, army spokesman in the southern region Sadeq Eisa told Xinhua.

In an identical air attacks, the Afghan forces, backed by fighting aircrafts, conducted series of sorties against militants in the northern Baghlan, Balkh and Faryab provinces, killing more than 30 militants and injuring over a dozen others, army spokesman in the northern region Ghulam Hazrat Karimi said.

According to Karimi, the government forces would continue to use fighting aircrafts as a lethal weapons in the war on militants.

Taliban militants who have speeded up activities against government forces over the past months have not commented on the report.