Kabul: As many as 12 Taliban terrorists, including senior group commander Mawlawi Noorudin, were killed in an airstrike carried out on the outfit's hideout in the relatively peaceful province of Samangan on Sunday, the country's army said.

"Acting upon intelligence report, the fighting planes targeted a hideout of the Taliban rebels in Dara-e-Suf Payan district Sunday morning, killing 12 rebels, including Mawlawi Noorudin, the shadow governor of Samangan province," Army spokesman in the region Mohammad Hanif Rezai told Xinhua news agency.