Afghan Warrior

Taliban fighters killed nine village elders including four policemen and 2 other civilians in the central province of Uruzgan on Thursday night, a day after government forces killed seven rebels in an attack on a security checkpoint. Uruzgan governor Mohammed Jan Khan said that guerillas released a nine-year-old boy to bring the news of the killings and to offer to exchange the dead bodies of the village elders and the rebels. A Taliban spokesman claimed that the elders had been cooperating with the Americans so they killed them. According to another report early on Friday morning, Taliban fighters attacked a security post in Charcheno district of Uruzgan province killing four policemen in which five guerillas were also killed and one was captured and the rest escaped.

Two more civilians were killed in another insurgent attack in Khost Province on Thursday when rockets aimed at the government office landed northeast of the city. Deputy police chief of Khost province Mohammed Zaman said police were conducting more patrols in the area to prevent such attacks in the future.

According to reports from the southeastern province of Helmand, one Taliban fighter was killed and another captured after they were trying to attack a convoy of American troops. Provincial spokesman Haji Mohammed Khan said no US soldiers were hurt.

Six Afghan security personnel, including two soldiers and four policemen, were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the southern Paktia province on Saturday while a senior police officer and his driver were wounded. Paktia governor Gulab Mangal told reporters a convoy comprising National Army, National Police and ISAF forces were on a patrol in the Maist village when the explosion happened, which killed four policemen and two ANA soldiers. Provincial security chief Ali Khel said the wounded and had been shifted to the civilian hospital for treatment. He further said that the explosion did not hurt the UN and ISAF personnel, who were part of the convoy. Some people had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack.

Taliban and their allied militants have stepped up attacks in the southern part of the country since March, killing dozens of Afghan officials security forces and 35 coalition forces. More than 400 guerillas have been also killed. According to government figures, 178 of them were killed in major attacks late last month in Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces.