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Three killed as Afghan police clash with suspected Taleban
KABUL - Two suspected Taleban rebels and one policeman were killed in a three-hour clash between insurgents and security forces in restive southern Afghanistan on Friday, police said. Three police and an unknown number of Taleban fighters were also wounded in the fierce exchange of fire in Dishu district of Helmand province, which shares a long border with Pakistan, provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Khan said. “One policeman and two Taleban were killed in the three-hour clash with police in Dishu district,” Khan told AFP.

The fighting started when a group of Taleban attacked a police post shortly after midnight, he said. Two Taleban bodies were still at the site Friday and there were bloodstains on the ground that showed that a number of wounded Taleban had escaped the area, he said.

A purported Taleban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call from an undisclosed location but said they had killed at least 10 police in the attack. “Our Mujahideen (holy warriors) attacked the police post at midnight and killed 10 police. One Talib was also wounded in the incident,” said Hanif.

The attack comes amid a heavy opium poppy eradication campaign by the government using tractors and hundreds of men and soldiers in the area, but police said the Taleban attack was not related to the eradication process. “The eradication campaign is still ongoing successfully,” Khan told AFP. The police post attacked is in an area called Rabatak, which is close to a famous drugs bazaar.

In a similar incident in Nangarhar province on Thursday two suspected Taleban rebels and a woman were killed in an clash with police. There are frequent attacks against US-led and Afghan forces by remnants of the ousted Taleban, mainly in south and southeastern Afghanistan along the porous border with Pakistan. US and other foreign troops are helping Afghan forces try to stem a deadly insurgency launched by the extremist Taleban after they were removed from power in a US-led military operation in late 2001. Violence, most of it blamed on the insurgency, was responsible for more than 1,600 deaths last year - mostly militants killed by security forces.
Posted by: Steve 2006-03-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=145038