KABUL, Aug 4: Dozens of militants stormed a police post in Afghanistan overnight, killing four policemen, while two clerics died on Monday when a bomb they were making in a mosque exploded, police said.

Some of the dozens of Taliban who attacked police in the central province of Ghazni were slain in a battle that lasted about an hour, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP.

The Zana Khan district police chief was one of the policemen who died, he said. “A big number of Taliban have also been killed, but we don’t know exactly how many,” Jahangir said.

A spokesman for the Taliban movement, Zabihullah Mujahed, confirmed that fighters with his group had carried out the attack but claimed they had not suffered casualties.

The US military announced it had killed “several” militants elsewhere in Ghazni, a once quiet province that has seen a steep rise in Taliban activity in the past year.

In Paktika province, which adjoins Ghazni, two men were killed when a waistcoat they were packing with bombs for use in a suicide attack exploded, the government said.

“Two mullahs (religious leaders) were killed when a suicide vest they were building went off prematurely,” said Zemarai Bashary, spokesman for the interior ministry, which handles police matters.

The pair was in a mosque near the border with Pakistan, he said.—AFP