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KABUL: Nine Afghan police including a district chief were killed in separate Taliban attacks on Wednesday in the restive south of the country where security continues to deteriorate ten years into the war.
In an ambush carried out with the help of a police insider in Helmand province, officials said that eight police officers were killed.
Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial administration, blamed the insurgent group for the killings.
“The attackers were helped by one policeman who now has fled with his gun,” he told AFP, referring to the attack in the Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand.
“Three other policemen are injured and the one who was a Taliban informant, the Taliban accomplice, has fled with the attackers,” Ahmadi told AFP.
Later in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan, a district police chief was killed and three of his bodyguards were injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb - the Taliban's cheaply-made weapon of choice.
Mohammad Gul, who ran the police in the district of Chora, was killed on his way to the provincial capital Trin Kot, said Gulab Khan, head of Uruzgan police's investigations department.
“Mohammad Gul was killed in a roadside bomb attack, and three of his bodyguards were injured,” he said, blaming the Taliban, who could not be reached for comment.
On Tuesday, five people were killed in a suicide car bombing near the police headquarters in Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gar, two months after British troops handed the Afghan government control.
Afghanistan is plagued by a deadly 10-year insurgency that has intensified each year since it was launched by the remnants of the Taliban following their toppling from power in late 2001.
The rebels have carried out several attacks helped by infiltrating the Western-trained Afghan security forces.
Late Sunday, one American was killed and another injured when an Afghan employee opened fire at an annex to the US embassy in Kabul used by the CIA. It was not known if the shooter was a Taliban infiltrator.
