Three Afghan police killed in two suicide blasts

KABUL, Sep 4 (Reuters) Suicide attackers detonated two bombs in Afghanistan today, killing three policemen, officials said, the latest in a rash of attacks amid a raging insurgency by Taliban guerrillas.

The target of one bomber was a provincial official travelling in a vehicle in the southeastern province of Paktika, a Taliban bastion near the border with neighbouring Pakistan.

The official survived, but one of his police bodyguards was killed and two were wounded, a provincial official said.

In the second attack in the relatively secure northern province of Kunduz, the bomber detonated an explosives-packed car as police pursued him, the province's governor said.

''Police were chasing the bomber when he blew the explosives.

Two policemen were martyred and three wounded,'' Kunduz governor Mohammad Omar said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but inspired by insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban largely resort to suicide raids and roadside bomb attacks in their campaign against the government and Western troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Violence has surged in the past 19 months in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since US-led troops overthrew Taliban's government in 2001 in retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

More than 7,000 people have been killed during that period.

REUTERS NC HT1337