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| Afghanistan |
| Six cops killed in northern Afghanistan |
| 2009-08-24 |
| [The News (Pak) Top Stories] A bomb in usually peaceful northern Afghanistan killed six police, two days after a coordinated militant ambush disrupted voting during elections in the same province, the government said Sunday. The roadside bomb killed the commander of the Baghlan provincial rapid reaction police force and five other police in the area of Kook Chinar near Baghlan town on Saturday, the interior ministry said. On Thursday, suspected Taliban militants stormed Baghlan town, launching a multi-pronged assault that left up to 30 militants and two police dead, and stopped voting during Afghanistan's second presidential election. "We had to tell our people to save your (ballot) boxes and save yourselves," the head of the election commission, Azizullah Lodin, said at the time. Baghlan province straddles the main road linking the Afghan capital Kabul with the north. Kunduz province, further north, has become increasingly dangerous and the main road running to the south from Kabul is another flashpoint. On Saturday an Afghan army officer driving back to Kabul from leave in Kandahar, the old Taliban capital in the south, was killed when gunmen opened fire around Shash Gaw in central Afghanistan, the defence ministry said. During a US-backed Afghan army operation, four militants were killed and six others arrested in Kandahar province on Saturday, the ministry added. Observers highlighted cases of fraud in Afghanistan's elections last week and said voting was not universally free due to violence and intimidation. The Taliban-led insurgency plaguing the country eight years after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted their extremist regime and implanted a Western-backed administration is now at its deadliest. |
| Posted by:Fred |