January 02, 2009	Friday	Muharram 04, 1430

KANDAHAR, Jan 1: Taliban militants attacked a district governor’s compound in Afghanistan’s volatile southern Helmand province on Wednesday, killing 20 police guards, government officials said.

The battle took place on the same day two foreign soldiers helping to fight the extremists were killed in separate incidents announced by the Nato-led force in which they were serving.

One was a British Royal Marine killed in Helmand, the British defence ministry said in London. The second soldier was also killed in the south of the country, but the Nato-led force did not release further details.

The killings were a bloody ending to a year in which a Taliban-led insurgency has intensified despite the efforts of around 70,000 international troops working alongside the Afghan security forces.

In Helmand, militants attacked security forces guarding the compound of Abdul Salaam, governor of the Musa Qala district and a former Taliban commander, provincial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi said.

Salaam was not there and had moved away from the home in the village of Shah Karaiz, in adjoining Kajaki district, he said.

“The fighting continued for hours and around 20 of his men were killed,” Ahmadi said.The Afghan interior ministry confirmed police were ambushed.

“The enemy attacked police posts in the village and as a result of fighting, 20 policemen were martyred,” ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. “The enemy cowardly killed a woman as well.” Bashary said it was not clear how many of the attackers were killed.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Yousuf Ahmadi, confirmed men from his group had been involved.

“In this fighting we killed 25 to 30 policemen,” he told AFP by telephone.

“Two of our mujahideen (fighters) were also martyred and four were wounded.”

In other incidents, a suicide car bomb exploded near an Afghan and Nato military convoy in the western province of Herat on Thursday and killed an Afghan policeman, provincial police chief Asmatullah Alizai said.

Four other Afghans were wounded, he said. The coalition force did not immediately have information about the attack.

And the US-led force said it had killed eight armed Taliban militants on Wednesday in Zabul province, also in southern Afghanistan.

Coalition soldiers were targeting a Taliban commander alleged to be involved in bombings and bringing foreign militants into the region, it said.

Several “armed militants” threatened the troops and were killed, including with the use of air power, it said.—AFP