Nine police, 5 Taliban militants killed in Afghanistan attacks

Apr 8, 2008, 5:43 GMT

Kabul - Seven Afghan police and five Taliban fighters were killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, while two other policemen were killed and six wounded in a separate attack in the same region, officials said on Tuesday.

Afghan police came under attack in Karez Bazaar area of Maiwand district of Kandahar province during a poppy eradication campaign on Monday, Sayed Agha Saqib, provincial police chief told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'The firefight lasted for hours and as a result seven policemen and five Taliban members were killed in the fighting,' Saqib said, adding that two other policemen and three other Taliban members were wounded in the gun-battle.

Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi, however, said that their forces attacked a group of Afghan forces while they were searching the houses in Maiwand district.

'Our Mujahideen surrounded the forces for two hours and killed 25 soldiers,' Ahmadi told dpa by phone from an undisclosed location. He said that two vehicles of the forces were also destroyed in the attack.

Southern Afghanistan is the largest opium-producing region in the country. The illicit drug is widely believed to have funded the six years of the Taliban's insurgency since the ousting of their regime in late 2001.

After the record year of opium production in 2007, the Afghan government is adamant in efforts to eradicate poppy fields in the country before they are harvested in summer and in some colder regions later this year.

Meanwhile, two policemen were killed and six others were wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb attack in Sangin district of volatile Helmand province on Monday, Mohammad Hussain Andewal, provincial police chief said.

He blamed Taliban militants for the attack.

Taliban militants have recently largely relied on the use of roadside and suicide attacks, both tactics are believe to have been copied from Iraqi insurgents.