Roadside bombs, insurgent attacks kill 24
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - May 27, 2008 In southern Kandahar province, Taliban insurgents killed nine
police in a two-pronged attack before dawn in Shorabak district,
said provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib.
Insurgents first attacked a police checkpoint, killing five
officers, Saqib said. Two roadside bombs then hit two vehicles
carrying police reinforcements, killing four more officers and
wounding three.
Another roadside bomb in Logar province, south of Kabul, killed
four police, said deputy police chief Abdul Majid Latifi.
Militants regularly target the country's fledgling police force,
which is seen as weaker than the better-trained and equipped Afghan
army. At least 72 police officers were killed in insurgent ambushes
and bombings in April alone.
More than 900 policemen were among the 8,000 people killed last
year. The high death toll comes despite some $4 billion spent by
the U.S. to train and equip the police in the last three years.
In western Farah province, a roadside bomb hit a bus Tuesday,
killing eight civilians and wounding another, said Farah deputy
governor Younus Rasuli. All the casualties were men.
The western Afghan provinces bordering Iran are frequently hit
by insurgent attacks. Militant bomb attacks usually target military
and police convoys, but civilians are often killed as well.
In Kandahar, a Taliban insurgent was planting a mine under a
bridge in Daman district when it prematurely exploded, killing the
insurgent and three children who were playing nearby, Saqib said.
In Logar, protesters blocked a road after foreign troops killed
a cleric during an operation before dawn Tuesday, local leaders
said.
Abdul Hakim Sulaimankhel, chief of Logar's provincial council,
said foreign troops raided a house and killed a cleric in Pul-e
Alam district. Four suspects were arrested.
He said 300 protesters carried the cleric's body to a main road
and blocked it. They demanded that the suspects be released.
The U.S.-led coalition said it was not involved in the
operation, and NATO officials did not immediately have details of
the incident.
U.S.-led coalition troops, meanwhile, killed "several
militants" Tuesday during two separate operations targeting
insurgents in eastern Paktia province and southern Helmand
province.
The forces discovered and destroyed several weapons in Paktia
and a cache of narcotics in Helmand.
U.S. Marines moved into Garmser late last month and have been
battling militants in almost daily battles ever since.
More than 1,200 people - mostly militants - have died in
insurgency-related violence so far this year, according to a count
by The Associated Press.
---
Associated Press writer Noor Khan contributed to this report
from Kandahar.