Kabul - Seven Afghan police and five Taliban fighters
were killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, while two other
policemen were killed and six wounded in a separate attack in the
same region, officials said on Tuesday.
Afghan police came under attack in Karez Bazaar area of Maiwand
district of Kandahar province during a poppy eradication campaign on
Monday, Sayed Agha Saqib, provincial police chief told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa.
'The firefight lasted for hours and as a result seven policemen
and five Taliban members were killed in the fighting,' Saqib said,
adding that two other policemen and three other Taliban members were
wounded in the gun-battle.
Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi, however, said that
their forces attacked a group of Afghan forces while they were
searching the houses in Maiwand district.
'Our Mujahideen surrounded the forces for two hours and killed 25
soldiers,' Ahmadi told dpa by phone from an undisclosed location. He
said that two vehicles of the forces were also destroyed in the
attack.
Southern Afghanistan is the largest opium-producing region in the
country. The illicit drug is widely believed to have funded the six
years of the Taliban's insurgency since the ousting of their regime
in late 2001.
After the record year of opium production in 2007, the Afghan
government is adamant in efforts to eradicate poppy fields in the
country before they are harvested in summer and in some colder
regions later this year.
Meanwhile, two policemen were killed and six others were
wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb attack in
Sangin district of volatile Helmand province on Monday, Mohammad
Hussain Andewal, provincial police chief said.
He blamed Taliban militants for the attack.
Taliban militants have recently largely relied on the use of
roadside and suicide attacks, both tactics are believe to have been
copied from Iraqi insurgents.
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