HERAT: Taliban rebels attacked a counter-narcotics police force in western Afghanistan on Friday, triggering a fierce clash that left two officers and 10 militants dead, a governor said.In other insurgency-linked violence, the head of a programme promoting reconciliation with the Taliban was shot dead on Friday and six Taliban were killed in a battle on Thursday, officials said.
The counter-narcotics police were travelling back to their headquarters in Nimroz province when they came under attack, provincial governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told AFP. “Ten Taliban and two police were killed in two hours of fighting and two Taliban were arrested,” he said. Two policemen and several Taliban were also wounded in the incident in Khashrod district, he added.
Destroying poppy: The police had been on a mission to destroy opium poppy crops. The United Nations has said that Khashrod is an important poppy-growing area, with a big increase in opium production expected in the province this year.
Afghanistan is the worldÂ’s top producer of illegal opium, which is used to make heroin, accounting for more than 90 percent of the global supply. The government said last week that 100 counter-narcotics policemen had lost their lives in violence in the past year, most of them during efforts to eradicate opium poppies.
In the southern province of Kandahar meanwhile, gunmen on motorbikes opened fire and killed the peace and reconciliation chief for the volatile Panjwayi district as he was leaving his orchards, the district chief Shah Bahram said. The official, Namatullah Sultani, was a tribal chief and headed the district’s outreach to militants, who are offered an amnesty if they agree to stop fighting and support the government. “This is the work of enemies of our country,” said Kandahar deputy police chief, Amanullah Khan, referring to Taliban.
Separately, around six Taliban were killed when a mob of militants attacked a convoy of about 150 border police in the western province of Badghis, border police commander for western Afghanistan, Rahmatullah Safi, said. “Two police were wounded when their vehicle rolled over,” he said.