An Afghanistan National Army soldier inspects the body of a Taliban fighter in Panjwai district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan yesterday.
KANDAHAR: Suspected Taliban militants killed seven policemen in southern Afghanistan after persuading the officers to invite them into their checkpoint for dinner, officials said yesterday.
The killings came during a bloody 24 hours for Afghan forces, with another 16 soldiers, policemen and bodyguards killed in different attacks, underscoring concern about government forces as foreign troops prepare to leave and Taliban insurgents increase attacks as part of their annual “spring offensive” launched last month.
The two attackers fled the checkpoint after shooting the seven men in the province of Kandahar, a hotbed of the militant campaign that targets security forces and officials as well as US-led foreign forces.
“The two men asked policemen to let them spend the night in their post. The policemen accepted and gave them food,” Jawed Faisal, spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, said.
“After dinner, the men grabbed the guns of the policemen and shot dead seven and wounded one and fled.”
Kandahar Afghan National Police chief Abdul Raziq said the two police officers had defected to the Taliban months ago but returned several days ago asking to rejoin. They were accepted back.
Ghorzang Afridi, a Kandahar police spokesman, said that the men escaped in a police jeep with several stolen weapons.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Five Afghan soldiers were killed in the northern province of Badakhshan in a militant assault, the ministry of defence said, while two were killed in an explosion in Kandahar.
Nine soldiers were killed during separate attacks, including five in the remote northeast province of Badakhshan and two in Kandahar.
In other attacks, at least three policemen were killed by a roadside bomb, also in Kandahar, and a bomb killed four bodyguards of the head of a private communication company in the central province of Parwan.
Concern is mounting over how the 352,000 members of security forces will cope after most foreign Nato-led combat troops leave by the end of next year. AGENCIES
