KABUL, Aug 8: Police killed three Taliban and captured a former midlevel official from the militia’s ousted government in separate incidents, officials said on Tuesday. Around 50 Taliban crossed into a remote area of the southern Paktika province and traded heavy machine gunfire with police late Monday, said Sayyed Jamal, spokesman for the governor.

The spokesman claimed that the militants slipped back into Pakistan after the fight, he said.

In another part of Paktika, police arrested Mullah Akhtar Mohammad, a former director of refugee affairs, along with a group of five other men fleeing from neighboring Helmand province overnight, he said. One of the men was wounded, he said.

They were fleeing from the same province were four British troops died battling over the last week trying to dislodge Taliban fighters.

In Helmand, police fending off an attack by Taliban militants killed two insurgents overnight, said provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhail.

Police were not hurt, Malakhail said.—AP