Taliban ambush, kidnap and execute Afghan police

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, May 28 (Reuters) Three Taliban fighters and one Afghan policeman were killed in a clash southwest of Kabul today, a day after three other police were kidnapped and executed by insurgents, police said.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in battles, ambushes and bombings since last week, according to US military and Afghan officials, and the country is going through its most violent period since US -backed Afghan forces ousted a Taliban government in late 2001.

Today, in the Andar district of Ghazni province, southwest of the capital, Taliban fighters killed one policeman and wounded six others in an ambush on a police convoy, but the attackers lost three of their own men as they tried to escape, said Abdul Wakil Kamiyab, a senior provincial police official.

Separately, yesterday, Taliban shot dead three police after kidnapping them from a vehicle in the southern province on Helmand, the scene of some of the worst recent fighting.

The violence has intensified at a time when NATO troops are poised to take responsibility from U.S.-led forces for patrolling more parts of the country.

Most of the dead were militants but dozens of Afghan police, soldiers and at least 17 civilians have also been killed, along with four foreign soldiers.

The Taliban and their allies, fighting to oust foreign forces and defeat the government of President Hamid Karzai, mostly operate in the south and east of Afghanistan.

REUTERS SY PC1815