Four Afghan policmen killed in motorbike ambush

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Mar 20 (Reuters) Suspected Taliban gunmen on motorbikes shot and killed four Afghan policemen today in a lawless southern province where 3,300 British troops will soon be based, a provincial official said.

The Taliban have vowed to launch a spring offensive against foreign forces and the Western-backed government as Afghanistan's NATO allies, including Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, are sending thousands more troops.

A police officer and three of his men were killed as they were driving along a road in the Mosa Qala district of the southern province of Helmand, said the district's administrative chief, Haji Mohammad Wali.

''The Taliban were on motorbikes. After they opened fire, they escaped,'' Wali told Reuters.

Helmand is a major opium-growing region and officials say the Taliban are in league with drug gangs, complicating efforts to improve security and stop drugs trading.

today's attack followed a particularly bloody spell in Afghanistan and after the US military said it expected an increase in insurgent raids and bombings in coming months.

Four US troops were killed in a blast yesterday last week and nine Afghan policemen were killed in another on Friday.

Other incidents in recent days included the killing of four Macedonian workers kidnapped by the Taliban, the assassination of a powerful Taliban critic in an eastern province and the attempted killing of that province's governor.

A US military spokesman said the Taliban were incapable of holding territory or defeating US-led troops and government forces, so they were increasingly resorting to roadside and suicide bombs.

The expansion of Afghanistan's NATO-led peacekeeping mission to 16,000 from 9,000 was on course to be completed by the summer, a force spokeswoman said, referring to a plan that takes NATO troops into the dangerous south, with British troops heading to Helmand.

As NATO troops take over responsibilities from a separate US-led force, the United States is hoping to cut the number of troops it has in Afghanistan by several thousand to about 16,000.

REUTERS DKS BST1858