(Adds comments by new NATO chief, Bush-Karzai call)

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL, April 19 (Reuters) - U.S. and Afghan troops killed about 24 Taliban in a battle in the Afghan south, the U.S. military said on Thursday, while government forces said they recaptured a road near Kabul.

U.S. and Afghan troops fought a seven-hour battle with the Taliban in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Wednesday night and U.S. aircraft were called in for support, the American military said in a statement.

"Approximately 24 Taliban were killed and four vehicles destroyed," it said. Two members of the U.S-led coalition force were wounded.

Violence has been increasing in Afghanistan in recent weeks after a winter lull, but a threatened Taliban spring offensive has yet to materialise.

In the meantime the U.S.-led force and troops from a separate NATO force have been mounting sweeps in Sangin and other parts of Helmand.

The new commander of the NATO force on Thursday likened the expected spring confrontation to a match between two boxers.

"We threw the first punch and it was a good one. But is the fight over yet? No," U.S. General Dan McNeill told reporters in a briefing at the heavily fortified NATO compound in Kabul. Helmand province, Afghanistan's main source of opium, has been plagued by violence since last year, when the Taliban ramped up their insurgency to oust foreign troops.

U.S. President George W. Bush called Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday to discuss the security situation and the effort to combat illegal drugs, Karzai's office said, without elaborating.

There are about 45,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about half of them Americans, the most since the Taliban were defeated in 2001.

But the insurgents have vowed to step up their war and have threatened attacks by thousands of suicide bombers.

In Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, government troops pushed Taliban fighters off a section of road they had captured on Tuesday, near Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan.

The fighting was the heaviest so close to the capital since the Islamists were ousted in 2001.

With support from the U.S.-led coalition, Afghan forces late on Wednesday retook the road in Tagab district, 70 km (40 miles) from Kabul, a defence ministry spokesman said.

The Afghan troops suffered no casualties, he said.

"We have taken back the road and are planning now to launch a cleaning-up operation," spokesman Zahir Azimi said.

He did not know how many Taliban fighters had dug in in the rugged Tagab valley, but Kapisa's governor believed the militants strength was up to 300 well-equipped fighters.

The Taliban could not be contacted immediately for comment.

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