Kabul, Afghanistan ? Forty-eight suspected militants were killed by NATO-led troops in three separate confrontations in southern Afghanistan.

NATO said at least four civilians were wounded in the clashes in Kandahar’s Zhari and Panjwayi districts on Tuesday, and that they were being treated at military medical facilities.

NATO-led troops and Afghan police seized 10 tons of marijuana from a truck that was stopped in southern Afghanistan on a road linking the southern city of Kandahar with Kabul, the alliance said. Four people in the truck were detained. Marijuana is illegal in Afghanistan, but officials here concentrate more on the fight against the opium trade.

In the country’s west, U.S. and Afghan troops recovered more than 120 pounds of opium from a car in Farah province, another NATO statement said Tuesday. Afghanistan’s world-leading opium cultivation rose 59 percent this year, according to U.N. figures released last month.