Five NATO soldiers, four police killed in Taliban clashes (Roundup)

Jul 6, 2009, 14:28 GMT

Kabul, - Five soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and four police were reported killed in Afghanistan Monday, while a district run by the Taliban for the past year was recaptured in a massive operation in the south, officials said.

Four ISAF military - all Americans - used in police training were killed in the northern Kunduz province in a roadside bomb blast early Monday, said provincial security chief Abdul Rahman Aqtash.

He told the German Press Agency dpa that the four were travelling together with the police in Khanabad district when a bomb planted under a bridge went off and destroyed their vehicle. Two adult civilians and a child were wounded in the attack, he said.

The four were on a police training project called Focused Border Development for training of the border police and were part of the NATO-led ISAF troops, said the security chief.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for targeting the foreign soldiers, and a spokesman for the movement Zabihullah Mujahid said five, not four, soldiers were killed in the incident.

Elsewhere, a British soldier has been killed during the ongoing Khanjar, or 'curved dagger', operation led by US forces in the Taliban stronghold Helmand province in the south.

A statement from the British military there said the dead soldier was from 1st Battalion Welsh Guards. 'The incident took place whilst on a deliberate operation near Gereshk, Helmand Province on the evening of 5 July 2009,' said the statement.

In other developments on the Helmand operations, local officials said they recaptured centre of Dishu district from the Taliban overnight, the second Taliban-run district retaken by the government.

Provincial police chief Asadullah Shirzad told dpa that Afghan and foreign forces cleared the district centre of Taliban Sunday night, and they were now clearing other areas of the region.

Earlier, Khanashin district had been recaptured from the Taliban. Both the districts were had been run by the Taliban for about a year. Three districts of Helmand remain under the militants' control.

In other developments, four police and six Taliban fighters have been killed in Musa Qala district of the same province in a clash, local officials said.

Musa Qala district chief Mullah Abdul Salam said he and a group of police were on the way to the funeral of his son when the Taliban attacked them late Sunday. The son had been killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday.

Nearly 4,000 US troops and 650 Afghan soldiers have been involved in Khanjar operations since last week.

Also in southern Afghanistan, a suicide car bomber blew himself up early Monday outside the main NATO base in Kandahar province, killing two civilians and wounding 14 other people.

The bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near the gates of Kandahar Airfield, said General Shir Mohammad Zazai, a regional army commander in the south. Two of the wounded were police, and the 12 others civilians, he said.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent weeks as the country moves closer to the August 20 presidential elections which the Taliban have vowed to disrupt.