Four police killed in Afghanistan attack

Taliban militants storm a police post in central Afghanistan, killing a police commander and three of his officers.

Taliban militants stormed a police post in central Afghanistan overnight, killing a police commander and three of his officers, a government spokesman said today. Some of the dozens of Taliban who conducted the raid in the central province of Ghazni were also killed in an ensuing battle that lasted about an hour, according to the provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir. He added that the Zana Khan district police chief was one of the policemen who died. "A big number of Taliban have also been killed but we don't know exactly how many," the spokesman said.

A spokesman for the insurgency Taliban movement, Zabihullah Mujahed, confirmed that fighters with his group had carried out the attack but claimed they had not suffered casualties. Police are among the main targets of extremist insurgents linked to the Taliban, who are trying to take back power after being driven from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001. Also in Ghazni, four people were killed in an air strike by international military forces but it was not confirmed if they were Taliban or civilians, Jahangir said.

"Four people, all men, were killed when coalition forces bombed a house in Waghaz district. An investigation has been launched to find out whether they were Taliban or civilians," It was not possible to independently confirm the reports due to the remoteness of the area. In more fighting, the US military said "several" militants were killed yesterday in the northern province of Baghlan in an operation to capture a militant leader responsible for bomb attacks on troops, the force said.

The militant was captured, it said in a statement. Unrest linked to the insurgency has increased every year since the Taliban were forced out. This year about 800 Afghan security force personnel and around 150 international troops have lost their lives in insurgency-linked unrest as have hundreds of civilians, according to various official estimates. The are no official figures for the number of rebels killed.

*AFP