KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan 18, (Agencies): Fifty Taleban fighters laid down their arms on Tuesday and joined pro-government forces in northern Afghanistan where militants have been slowly expanding their presence, officials said.
Separately, an Italian soldier was killed during a shootout Tuesday in western Afghanistan, the Italy’s defense minister said on state-run television. A second Italian soldier was wounded in the shoulder in the gunbattle in Bala Murghab district of Badghis province, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said.
Kunduz province police chief Abdul Rahman Sayedkhaili said 10 or 15 militants at a time have switched sides in recent months, but that on Tuesday, 50 Taleban fighters joined forces with the government. The Taleban — from Iman Sahib district — were being heavily pressured by Afghan and coalition forces, he said.

Gen. Daood Daood, regional Afghan police commander in northern Afghanistan, also confirmed that the fighters had switched sides.
However, Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said he had no reports of any Taleban switching sides.
He said that even if they did, they might be just doing it temporarily because of the onset of winter, or as part of their own war tactics. He said more than 3,000 Taleban are actively fighting in the north where NATO officials say some defectors are being killed.
Australia and Britain warned Tuesday that 2011 and 2012 will be critical years in the war in Afghanistan, but said they were determined to deny terrorism a base in the war-torn nation.
The long-running conflict, where Britain has 9,500 troops and Australia 1,550, was top of defence and security talks between the nations, which also touched on the rise of China and tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The countries said they were committed to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan between 2014 and 2015 but stressed that international forces had only recently gained traction there and difficult times lay ahead.
“In terms of having adequate manning, in terms of having adequate equipment we’ve only really been in Afghanistan for the last year, since the end of the American surge,” Britain’s Defence Secretary Liam Fox told reporters after the summit.
Iran told the Afghan government on Tuesday that it will stop blocking thousands of tanker trucks trying to move fuel into Afghanistan, authorities announced.
An Afghan government statement said the Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan, Fada Hussain Maliki, told President Hamid Karzai that the fuel tankers still stuck at the border would be allowed to enter Afghanistan during the next four days.

The Iranians began barring fuel trucks from crossing the Iran-Afghanistan border in late December, leaving about 2,500 trucks stuck at three crossings. The move, which Afghan officials have criticized as being tantamount to an embargo, has led fuel prices to rise as much as 70 percent.
Tehran has said the ban was linked to its recent decision to slash domestic fuel subsidies in a bid to cut costs and boost an economy squeezed by international sanctions. Afghan officials said Iran also had expressed concern that fuel shipments were supplying NATO forces in Afghanistan.
“This fuel doesn’t belong to NATO, it belongs to the poor Afghan people,” said Farid Shirzai, head of the Afghan Commerce Ministry’s fuel department.
Iran supplies about 30 percent of the country’s refined fuel, Afghan officials say. The remainder of the blocked shipments come from Iraq and Turkmenistan, but must transit through Iran.
Between 1,400 and 1,500 of the original 2,500 stranded tankers are still waiting to cross into Afghanistan. Shirzai said Iran allowed about 40 tanker trucks to cross the border at three crossings on Monday.