| Suspected Taleban militants beheaded three Afghan soldiers in the troubled southern province of Zabul over the weekend in the latest pre-election violence, an official said yesterday. Zabul security chief Jailani Khan said the soldiers, who were not in uniform, were travelling in a taxi from Naubahar district to the provincial capital of Qalat when they were stopped by a group of men that included two Pakistanis and an Arab. The three passengers were beheaded in an attack claimed by a breakaway faction of Afghanistan's ousted Taleban militia, which has vowed to step up violence in the runup to a presidential election on October 9. "We have already announced that anyone in the government or aiding the infidels will be killed," said Sabir Momin, a commander of the Taleban Jamiat Jaish-e-Muslimeen (Muslim Army of the Taleban) faction. |