Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed nine militants after suspected Taliban fighters attacked two army checkpoints in the latest fighting to rock southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said on Friday. Six militants were wounded in three hours of clashes but escaped, and one other militant was arrested, said Mohammed Zahir Khan, chief of Khas Uruzgan district in southern Uruzgan province where the fighting occurred late on Thursday. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber was the sole victim in a failed attack on Friday on an Afghan police convoy in the country's east, police said. The attack happened in the Gurbuz district of southeastern Khost province bordering Pakistan, said provincial police chief Gen Mohammed Ayoub. The attacker, on foot, ran at a police pickup truck that was driving slowly on a bumpy road and detonated his explosives short of the vehicle, killing only himself, Ayoub said.