Attacks, bombs kill 14 in Afghanistan

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KABUL (AFP) - Bomb blasts and attacks killed 11 policemen and three civilians in separate incidents in insurgency-hit Afghanistan , officials said Friday.

In the deadliest incident, attackers tossed a grenade into a police post in Panjwayi district of troubled southern Kandahar province and then opened fire into the building, killing eight policemen, the provincial police chief told AFP.

Another two policemen were missing after the midnight attack and two were wounded, General Mutihullah Khan said.

"A hand grenade was thrown into a police post in Panjwayi district near the district centre followed by a small-arms fire attack on the post. Eight police have been killed, two police are wounded and two are still missing," Khan said.

The area has been a hotbed of Taliban insurgents but it was not clear if the militants were responsible.

"At this stage we cannot say if the two missing police are taken by Taliban or they had links with Taliban or if there was some problem among policemen in the post and they had fought and killed each other," he said.

Separately three policemen were killed and two were wounded Friday in the central province of Ghazni when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said his group was responsible for the attack in the district of Rashidan.

Another roadside bomb hit a civilian vehicle in the neighbouring province of Wardak, killing three civilians and wounding two, said the provincial police chief, General Muzafarudin, who uses one name.

He blamed the attack on "enemies of peace in Afghanistan ", a term used by Afghan authorities to refer to the Taliban insurgents who have waged a bloody insurgency since their ouster from power in late 2001.

The hardliners were in government between 1996 and 2001 and were toppled by a US-led invasion. Their insurgency has cost thousands of lives.

There are nearly 70,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan to help the government fight the insurgency.

June was the deadliest for foreign soldiers since the start of the war that ousted the Taliban weeks after the September 11 attacks by their Al-Qaeda allies on the United States, with 49 killed in combat or in accidents.

The US-led coalition reported that another soldier had died Friday of "non-combat" injuries. It did not give details, including the nationality of the soldier or details of what had happened.