UPDATE 3-Afghan, U.S.-led troops kill dozen Taliban fighters

(Updates to clarify one incident, not two)

KABUL March 23 (Reuters) - Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops killed more than a dozen Taliban insurgents, hitting back with air and ground forces after militants ambushed them in southern Afghanistan, a U.S. military statement said.

Concealed Taliban insurgents attacked the joint coalition and Afghan security forces patrol in the Deh Rawood district of the southern province of Uruzgan on Friday.

The patrol immediately returned fire and advanced on the Taliban positions, the statement said.

"Once the enemy fighting positions were located, friendly forces called in close air support, eliminating the insurgents," it said.

The Afghan Defence Ministry earlier said Afghan and NATO-led forces had killed tens of Taliban insurgents in an operation in the same area on Saturday, but a U.S. coalition spokesman said it was the same incident and that it happened on Friday.

Elsewhere in the south, a mine killed two soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

"Coalition forces, along with Afghan National Security Forces, were conducting a security patrol in the Zharmi District, when their vehicle struck a mine placed on a frequently travelled road", said the statement, issued late on Saturday.

Taliban insurgents planted hundreds of mines and roadside bombs in 2007, contributing to a record year of violence that killed more than 6,000 people, nearly 2,000 of them civilians.