Taliban say they killed Afghan intelligence officer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 14 : Taliban insurgents said today they had killed an Afghan intelligence officer in the south of the country.

Gunmen on a motorbike shot dead the officer in the town of Lashkar Gah. A teacher with the officer was wounded, the deputy governor of Helmand province said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said by telephone from an undisclosed location that the Taliban had carried out the attack late yesterday.

Militants, fighting to oust foreign forces and Afghanistan's Western-backed government, have intensified their insurgency this year and hundreds of people have been killed in bomb attacks, ambushes and clashes.

The Taliban insurgency is largely confined to the south and east but there are occasional attacks in the generally peaceful north and west.

Six people -- three of them policemen -- were wounded in the northern province of Baghlan today in a roadside blast.

Police said they were trying to clear a landmine found beside a road when a second one went off.

A U N driver and a doctor from a German aid agency were killed on Friday when attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at their vehicle in the western province of Herat.

A worker for the U.N. Children's Fund was seriously wounded.

All three casualties were Afghan.

President Hamid Karzai called that attack a ''despicable act of terrorism'' and blamed ''foreign mercenaries'' trying to hinder reconstruction. He did not elaborate.

Reuters