September 29, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 2, 1424

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KABUL, Sept 28: Taliban guerillas killed seven bodyguards of the governor of the volatile southern province of Helmand at the weekend in the latest of a series of violent strikes by the resurgent movement, officials said on Sunday.

Haji Mohammad Ayub, deputy chief of police in Helmand, told Reuters that Taliban fighters attacked a military vehicle carrying the soldiers at Sangin district, northeast of Helmand’s capital Lashkargah, on Saturday night.

The governor, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, was not travelling with them, he said. Five soldiers died instantly and two within a few hours.

Haji Muhammad Wali, a spokesman for the governor, said at least 10 guerillas in two cars staged the attack. They escaped but abandoned one car with a mechanical problem.

It was the latest of a series of strikes blamed on a resurgent Taliban movement ousted by US-led forces late in 2001 and the second in Helmand in less than a week, after an attack that killed two aid workers on Wednesday.

The period since early August has been the bloodiest since the Taliban fell, with around 290 people killed, among them civilians, aid workers, police and militiamen, three US soldiers and guerillas.

Taliban guerillas say they attacked a vehicle of the Voluntary Association for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan in Helmand province on Wednesday, killing two aid Afghan workers.

The United Nations described this attack on Sunday as a war crime that confirmed the critical necessity of enhancing security in the provinces.

In another incident on Saturday night, suspected Taliban supporters burned down a secondary school in the southeastern province of Nangarhar that taught girls as well as boys.

The incident took place at around midnight on Saturday in the village of Shaga. —Reuters