Taliban raid Afghan police posts, six killed

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Mar 31 (Reuters) Taliban insurgents raided today several police posts in Afghanistan and six of the attackers were killed, a provincial official said.

The Taliban say they have launched a spring offensive in their campaign to oust foreign troops and defeat the Western-backed government and violence has surged in recent days.

The insurgents attacked the police posts in the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. and Canadian forces were involved in a big battle this week, said the province's deputy governor, Amir Akhundzada.

Earlier today, a suicide car-bomber was killed when he blew himself up as he tried to ram his vehicle into an Afghan army convoy, an Afghan commander said.

It was the second attempted car-bombing against security forces in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in 24 hours.

Seven passers-by and a Canadian soldier were wounded yesterday when a car-bomber attacked a Canadian patrol in Kandahar city.

Commander Rehmatullah Raufi said none of his men were wounded in today's attack on a road in a district outside the provincial capital.

They say they have numerous suicide bombers waiting to strike.

Troops from a U.S.-led force and the Afghan army clashed with insurgents in the central province of Uruzgan, killing one and seizing a cache of weapons, ammunition and bomb-making material, the U.S. military said.

In a separate incident, a man was killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when a bomb he was transporting in a cart exploded, police said. His identity and target were not known.

The Taliban have not been known to operate in force in the country's north, although the region does see an occasional attack on foreign peacekeepers.

The Taliban have been waging an insurgency since they were ousted by U.S.-led and Afghan opposition troops in late 2001, mostly in the south and east, near the Pakistani border.

The government has made repeated appeals for Taliban fighters to give up and return to society but few have taken up the offer and the level of violence in the south and east is the worst it has been since 2001, political analysts say.

REUTERS KD PC2103