Aid agencies retreat from southern Afghan province

KABUL, July 18 (Reuters) Some aid agencies said today they had reduced activities in the Afghan province of Helmand over safety concerns, less than a fortnight before NATO is due to take over peacekeeping operations in the south.

Militants and their drug gang allies have launched almost daily attacks against U.S.-led coalition troops in the south in the past six weeks.

NATO will undertake what is set to be the alliance's toughest ground mission in its history when it takes over in the south from a US-led coalition force at the end of the month.

Helmand has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in past weeks and 14 foreign troops have been killed there since March.

Abdul Khaliq, provincial head of Bangladeshi aid group BRAC, said his staff in Helmand had been pulled out. ''We have closed the operation for now due to insecurity,'' he said.

Mohammad Nasir Foshanji, head of security for Mercy Corps, a Western funded aid group said activities had been reduced in a couple of districts in Helmand, but the main office was still open.

There were reports another aid agencies had also withdrawn from the province, but this could not be confirmed.

Poppy cultivation has been high in Helmand, and money made from selling the flowers' opium has helped pay for the insurgency, according to security analysts.

The Taliban and the drug gangs have operated unmolested in Helmand for years and are putting up fierce resistance to efforts by foreign and government forces to extend their authority.

The US-led coalition launched a big offensive last month in response to the most intense phase of violence by a resurgent Taliban across the south.

In central Afghanistan, four Taliban fighters and two police were killed when insurgents ambushed a police convoy in Andar district of Ghazni province.

A highway police commander Shah Wali Haqparast said the insurgents fled after the clash which lasted about two hours.

More than 1,600 people have been killed in Afghan violence this year, most of them Taliban, according to US and Afghan figures. More than 60 foreign troops have been killed.

REUTERS SHB PM1803