KABUL: Afghan officials say seven Afghan policemen, four Education Ministry employees and a body guard have been killed in three separate attacks.

Din Mohammad Darwesh, a spokesman for the governor of Logar province in the east, says two policemen were killed Tuesday when Taliban militants ambushed them in a bazaar near the provincial capital of Pul-e-Alam.

Gawas Malayar, deputy police chief in Farah province, says a roadside-remote-controlled bomb killed five police officers late on Tuesday in Pusht Rod district in western Afghanistan.

Farah province's regional police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi blamed the attack on “enemies of Afghanistan”, a phrase used by Afghan officials to refer to the Taliban, which is still fighting a bitter insurgency more than a decade after being toppled from power by the 2001 US-led invasion.

In eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan, a provincial education director was severely wounded in a Taliban roadside bomb and gun attack that left four of his guards dead, officials said.

Atta Mohammad Qaneh was travelling to his headquarters in Paktika's provincial capital of Sharana after inspecting schools in Urgun district, a dangerous border area, education ministry spokesman Amanullah Eman said.

“He was wounded in the attack and four of his guards were killed,” the official said. Another four people working for the provincial education department were wounded in the ambush, the spokesman added.

Mukhlis Afghan, a spokesman for the provincial government, confirmed the attack and the casualties, blaming Taliban-linked insurgents.

The Islamist militia is fighting to evict foreign troops and bring down the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Separately, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke on the phone Tuesday to relatives of civilians killed in Nato airstrikes that he says run the risk of turning the recently signed US-Afghan partnership agreement into a “meaningless” document.