Attacks on Afghani police leave 14 dead or wounded

Suspected Taliban attacked three police posts in Afghanistan overnight, leaving 14 rebels dead or wounded, while soldiers killed four more in separate battles, officials said yesterday.

Police said meanwhile they had arrested 15 suspected Taliban in a sweep on Saturday of an area south of Kandahar city where 41 of the militants and six police were killed in a major day-long battle on Friday.

The police posts -- which are a couple of kilometers apart from each other on the country's main highway between Kandahar and the capital -- were attacked in a near-simultaneous strike late on Saturday, police said.

"For 30 minutes the Taliban were fighting with police last night. Fourteen Taliban wounded and killed," Zabul provincial police chief Mohammad Nabi Molakhel told reporters.

The posts, which are usually manned by about 10 policemen, were all close to the Zabul capital Qalat.

A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, confirmed the attack but said only two Taliban were killed along with nine policemen. Police said they had no casualties.

Afghan and coalition soldiers killed another three Taliban on Saturday after being ambushed while on a joint patrol in central Uruzgan province, a US military statement said.

"The engagement occurred when five insurgents attacked Afghan National Army and coalition forces with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The Afghan and coalition forces maneuvered and returned fire," it said.

An area southwest of Kandahar city that was the scene of a major battle on Friday in which coalition choppers fired rockets in support of Afghan forces was quiet after a sweep on Saturday.

"The situation is normal now, all areas in Maywand and Zarai districts of Kandahar are under control of the police," interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said. "The operation is over now."

Canadian coalition forces said they had assisted in Saturday's clean-up, which saw no new fighting.

Provincial governor Assadullah Khalid said the battle erupted after Taliban massed in the area, about 40km southwest of Kandahar city, for about three days after fleeing an offensive in neighboring Helmand Province.

The dead included a district police chief while a district governor was among the wounded, he said.

A resident of one village said a 19-year-old girl was killed but Stanizai said no civilians were killed and three were slightly wounded.

The area included Singesar village, where fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar lived for several years and emerged as leader of the radical religious movement that took power in Afghanistan in 1996.

The Taliban, which imposed a harsh version of Islamic Shariah law on war-weary Afghanistan, were toppled in a US-led attack in late 2001 they refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.