HERAT: Fifteen Afghan security guards were killed in an ambush in western Afghanistan Tuesday, police said, as two police and several Taliban militants died in other clashes across the country.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar meanwhile vowed to keep fighting through the winter and attack Afghan and international troops who drove his fighters from a southern town last week.

The guards working for a private US firm identified as USPI were killed when militants ambushed them in Bala Buluk district of the western province of Farah early Tuesday, police official Colonel Saydo Khan said.

Nine other guards were injured in the ambush on a civilian supply convoy headed to a western military base in the region, Khan said. “We have evacuated the wounded to the hospital,” he said.

Provincial governor Mohaiuddin Baluch confirmed the incident but had no details about the casualties.—AFP