Kabul - A militant wearing a police uniform killed a NATO
soldier in eastern Afghanistan, while a Taliban attack against a
provincial lawmaker left four of his security guards dead, officials
said Monday.
The militant in police uniform opened fire on NATO-led US forces
in the south-eastern province of Paktia on Sunday, killing one US
soldier and wounding two others, a police official, who declined to
be named, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The militant was also killed in the shootout inside a NATO base in
Zazi Aryoub district of the province, he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed one of their fighters
got access to a US military base in the district and killed eleven
soldiers.
Mujahid, who was speaking by phone from an undisclosed location,
identified the attacker as Ahmadullah, a resident of the province.
NATO-led forces also said in a statement that late on Sunday one
of their soldiers was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern
Afghanistan.
However, it was not clear if the police official, Mujahid and the
NATO statement were referring to the same incident.
Meanwhile, Taliban militants opened fire on the vehicle of
Mohammad Hashim Granai, head of the provincial council of the
southern province of Zabul, Dilbar Arman, the provincial governor of
Zabul, told dpa.
'Mr Granai survived the attack, but two of his bodyguards and two
of his relatives were killed and three other relatives were wounded
in the firing,' Arman said.
The governor said that the provincial lawmaker was on his way home
after coming out of a friend's house in Kandahar city, the capital of
the province of the same name, when the attack took place.
Taliban militants, who often conduct roadside or suicide attacks
as the main part of their insurgency, have recently stepped up direct
confrontations.
The militants shot dead a senior female police officer and wounded
her son in Kandahar city on Sunday morning as she was on her way to
her office.
In another incident in Spin Boldak, another district in Kandahar
province, a suicide bomber targeted police forces on Sunday
afternoon, killing four border policemen and two civilians, according
to a NATO statement and Matiullah Khan, provincial police chief.
Another 17 people including two police officers were wounded in
the attack.
More than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents, but including more
than 200 international troops and hundreds of Afghan security
personnel - have been killed in the Afghanistan conflict so far this
year.
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