Three Afghan police killed in Taliban ambush

KABUL, May 8 (Reuters) Taliban guerrillas killed three policemen in an ambush in southern Afghanistan and three bombs exploded in an eastern town but caused no casualties, police said.

Taliban insurgents have intensified their campaign against foreign troops and the government in recent months with a wave of roadside and suicide bombings, attacks and assassinations.

The insurgents ambushed a police vehicle delivering supplies to a post in the southern province of Zabul yesterday night. Zabul police officer Abdur Rabb said three policemen and two Taliban were killed during the clash which lasted for nearly an hour.

In the eastern town of Jalalabad, three bombs went off in a central market area tonday. No one was hurt but windows in nearby buildings were smashed, a provincial security official said. He said the Taliban were responsible.

The increase in violence has coincided with the arrival of thousands more troops from NATO countries.

A NATO-led peacekeeping force, which now operates in Kabul, the north and west, will in July take over from US-led forces in the volatile south.

The United States will then cut the number of its troops in Afghanistan from more than 19,000 to about 16,500.

Thirty foreign troops, 23 of them Americans, have been killed in combat this year.

Two Italian peacekeepers were killed by a roadside bomb just to the south of Kabul on Friday.

On the same day, a US military helicopter crashed in eastern mountains killing all 10 US soldiers and crew on board.

The US military is investigating the cause of the crash but has ruled out hostile fire.

US and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001 after they refused to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, architect of the September. 11 attacks on the United States.

REUTERS OM VV1342