Militant in police uniform kills NATO soldier, wounds two

Sep 29, 2008, 10:03 GMT

Kabul - A militant wearing a police uniform killed a NATO soldier in eastern Afghanistan, while a Taliban attack against a provincial lawmaker left four of his security guards dead, officials said Monday.

The militant in police uniform opened fire on NATO-led US forces in the south-eastern province of Paktia on Sunday, killing one US soldier and wounding two others, a police official, who declined to be named, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The militant was also killed in the shootout inside a NATO base in Zazi Aryoub district of the province, he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed one of their fighters got access to a US military base in the district and killed eleven soldiers.

Mujahid, who was speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, identified the attacker as Ahmadullah, a resident of the province.

NATO-led forces also said in a statement that late on Sunday one of their soldiers was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.

However, it was not clear if the police official, Mujahid and the NATO statement were referring to the same incident.

Meanwhile, Taliban militants opened fire on the vehicle of Mohammad Hashim Granai, head of the provincial council of the southern province of Zabul, Dilbar Arman, the provincial governor of Zabul, told dpa.

'Mr Granai survived the attack, but two of his bodyguards and two of his relatives were killed and three other relatives were wounded in the firing,' Arman said.

The governor said that the provincial lawmaker was on his way home after coming out of a friend's house in Kandahar city, the capital of the province of the same name, when the attack took place.

Taliban militants, who often conduct roadside or suicide attacks as the main part of their insurgency, have recently stepped up direct confrontations.

The militants shot dead a senior female police officer and wounded her son in Kandahar city on Sunday morning as she was on her way to her office.

In another incident in Spin Boldak, another district in Kandahar province, a suicide bomber targeted police forces on Sunday afternoon, killing four border policemen and two civilians, according to a NATO statement and Matiullah Khan, provincial police chief.

Another 17 people including two police officers were wounded in the attack.

More than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents, but including more than 200 international troops and hundreds of Afghan security personnel - have been killed in the Afghanistan conflict so far this year.