Taliban kill six Afghan police in ambush

Herat (Afghanistan), Aug 15: Taliban guerrillas killed six Afghan policemen in an ambush today, officials said, in the latest incident in the bloodiest phase of Afghan violence since the Taliban were overthrown.

Those killed in the attack in the western province of Farah were a district police chief and five of his men, said provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib.

Saqib said the attackers were Taliban and a spokesman for the militant group said it was responsible.

In a separate incident, US-led troops battling insurgents and hunting their leaders in the east of the country killed a suspected al Qaeda member and detained 13 militants in a raid yesterday in the southeastern province of Khost, the force said.

The man killed had been disguised as a woman, the force said. No members of the US-led force or Afghan troops working with it had been hurt, it said.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year and more than 1,800 people including more than 80 foreign troops have been killed.

The Taliban, ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001, are mostly active in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan but attacks have increased this year in the west and north.

Reuters