Taliban launch raids in Afghan east, two dead

KABUL, May 16 (Reuters) Taliban insurgents raided two police posts and a district government office in eastern Afghanistan today killing two policemen and wounding six, police said.

In a separate incident, two government employees were found beheaded in the southern province of Helmand, where British forces are overseeing security, a police official said.

Nearly five years after they were forced from power, the Taliban have stepped up their insurgency. The level of violence in parts of the country is the worst it has been since the end of Taliban rule.

More than 500 people have been killed in violence this year.

Taliban fighters launched raids on the police posts and the government office near the Pakistani border early in the morning.

''Two of our police were martyred, unfortunately,'' said provincial police spokesman, Wazir Padshah, speaking from the eastern town of Khost.

A woman civilian living in a house next to the government office was also wounded, he said.

Security forces later captured 13 suspected Taliban, including some who were burying a body, he said.

The Taliban, fighting to oust foreign forces and defeat Afghanistan's elected government, were ousted in late 2001 after refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

A senior security official in Helmand province said two government employees, who went missing while travelling along a main road last week, were found beheaded today.

''This is an act of the enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan. We are investigating to find out who was behind it,'' said the security official, Amanullah, who uses one name.

In Ghazni province, south of the Kabul, a man was seriously wounded when a mine he was planting exploded, police said.

Provincial security chief Abdul Wakel Kamiyab said he believed the mine was aimed at people working on a US-funded road project in the province.

REUTERS SI SSC1358