Afghan police kill four Taliban
Afghan police killed four Taliban militants during heavy fighting in the south of the country today, while suspected Taliban gunmen shot dead a judge in the west, officials said.
The governor of the eastern province of Nangarhar escaped an apparent assassination attempt by a member of the former Taliban regime when a car bomb exploded outside his offices, a police official said.
Radical remnants of the toppled Taliban have been targeting Afghan officials and US-led coalition forces in an incessant campaign of violence aimed at derailing this war-ravaged country’s American-backed government. Taliban militants ambushed a police convoy about 20 miles north of the Helmand provincial capital Lashkar Gah, sparking a three-hour gunbattle that left four Taliban dead and one policeman wounded, said local government official Ghulam Muhiddin. The bodies of the four killed militants were left behind by others who had fled, Muhiddin said.
One car, five assault rifles and two heavy machine guns were confiscated. In neighbouring Farah province, Taliban militants on motorcycles shot dead a deputy civil court judge, Gov Izadullah Wasfi said.
