KABUL, Aug 7: Six Afghan soldiers and a US aid group’s Afghan driver were killed on Thursday in an attack by suspected Taliban on a police office in southwestern Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, officials said.

Helmand province security chief Abdul Rahman Sabir said the assailants arrived in the town of Dishu early on Thursday in four pick-up trucks and fired AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at the police office and a district administration building. Mr Sabir alleged the attackers had travelled from Pakistan, which lies 100 kilometers to the south.

“Taliban in four vehicles had come from Pakistan and carried out the attack using RPGs and AK-47 rifles and fled back to Pakistan,” he said by phone from Helmand’s capital Lashkar Gah, 570km southwest of Kabul.

“Two of the vehicles attacked Dishu district police building and killed six soldiers and one driver working for a US non-governmental organization while two other vehicles attacked the district office building,” he said.

Government soldiers returned fire as the attackers fled back towards Pakistan, he said.

Mr Sabir, echoing many Afghan officials, alleged that Taliban and other anti-government rebels were crossing over from Pakistan to launch attacks in Afghanistan.

Taliban militants are increasingly using remote-control bombs rather than rockets to attack coalition and government troops in Afghanistan, a US military spokesman said on Thursday.

“The remote-control improvised device (bomb) is now the preferred method of terrorism for the Taliban,” US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Lefforge told reporters.—AFP