Scores killed as violence surges across Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 18 (Reuters) About 100 people were killed in two of the most violent days in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, as hundreds of insurgents attacked a southern town and fighting flared across the country.

Government officials said 13 policemen and 40 Taliban were killed in hours of fighting that raged after the strike on Mosa Qala town, 470 km southwest of Kabul, was launched yesterday evening.

Helmand's deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada, said it was the biggest strike in the province by the hardline Islamists since they were driven from power more than four years ago.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan government forces in recent months as thousands more NATO peacekeepers arrive. Violence in parts of the country is the worst it has been since the end of their rule.

''Thirteen policemen were killed and six were injured,'' Interior Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said in a statement.

''Forty people on the enemy side were killed.'' In a separate incident, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy in the generally peaceful western city of Herat, killing himself and an American civilian. A US embassy spokesman said he was a State Department contractor training afghan police.

A suicide bomber also attacked a US military convoy near Ghazni town, 125 km southwest of Kabul, killing himself and a man on a motorcycle, an Afghan army officer said.

A US soldier suffered minor wounds, a US military spokeswoman said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Herat attack but there was no immediate claim for the Ghazni blast.

A Canadian woman soldier was killed in fighting in neighbouring Kandahar province yesterday, hours before Canada's parliament narrowly backed a two-year extension of Canada's Afghan mission to 2009.

The US military said 18 Taliban were killed and 26 captured in the fighting in Panjwai district, 25 km west of Kandahar town yesterday.

In fighting in the area today, seven Taliban were confirmed killed and up to 20 others might have been killed in an air strike, the US military said. One foreign soldier was wounded, it said.

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