Taliban attack police convoy in northern Afghanistan, kill 12

Sep 24, 2007, 8:33 GMT

    Kabul - At least 15 people, 11 of them security personnel, have been killed in two separate attacks by Taliban fighters in northern and western Afghanistan, police reported Monday.

    Police officials in north-eastern Badakhshan province say a police convoy was ambushed by gunmen in Raghistan district late Sunday, killing 12 people.

    The police were on the way from Raghistan to the provincial capital of Faizabad, when they came under attack, said Fazl Ahmad Nazari, chief of crime investigation of Badakhshan.

    'Seven policemen, a local attorney officer and three civilians were killed in the ambush,' said Nazari.

    The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.

    In the western Farah province, three staffers of a private American security agency were killed in an attack late Sunday.

    Provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said the attack on a convoy of the US Protection and Investigation (USPI) sparked a two-hour firefight in which 21 Taliban rebels were also killed.

    'After the USPI convoy came under attack, the police rushed to its support and during a two-hour battle, 21 insurgents were killed. Also in the incident, three USPI personnel were killed and two of their jeeps were destroyed by fire,' Sarjang told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

    Meanwhile, the interior ministry in Kabul said a would-be suicide bomber who was wounded in a failed attack has been detained in northern Takhar province. A statement from the interior ministry said the bomber detonated some explosives with him in front of the residence of a senior army official, but caused no casualties apart from wounding himself.

    The statement said local police arrested the bomber and confiscated most of the unexploded explosives attached to him.