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Posted on 10/12/2003 7:21:25 AM PDT by PatrioticCowboy
Taliban Kill Eight Policemen in Afghan Attack
Sun October 12, 2003 09:37 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Up to 100 Afghan Taliban guerrillas attacked a district office in the volatile southern province of Zabul early Sunday, killing eight policemen and wounding two others, a local official said.
The latest attack by a resurgent guerrilla movement occurred in Zabul's Arghandab district shortly before 2 a.m., district officer Haji Qudratullah told Reuters.
He said up to 100 Taliban fighters were involved, who burned down the district office and destroyed four vehicles.
Qudratullah said he had no figure for Taliban casualties, though he had heard that some of the attackers had been killed.
"People said they took dead bodies with them," he said. Government forces had reoccupied the area after dawn.
The attack was just the latest in a series by the Taliban movement, ousted from government by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for sheltering the al Qaeda network blamed for Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that year.
The period since the start of August has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, with more than 300 people killed, many of them in guerrilla attacks.
The dead have included Afghan aid workers, government soldiers, policemen and U.S. troops from the 11,500-strong U.S.-led force still searching for Taliban remnants and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. U.S. SOLDIER SLIGHTLY WOUNDED
Sunday's attack follows an audacious escape by 41 Taliban prisoners from the main jail in Kandahar province, Zabul's neighbor.
Among the escapees was Mawlavi Abdullah, brother of former Taliban defense minister Obaidullah, and a commander named Aziz Agham who officials say mounted a number of guerrilla attacks in the months before his capture earlier this year.
Afghan and U.S. forces pursuing Islamic militants accuse neighboring Pakistan, the main backer of the Taliban until the September 11 attacks, of providing sanctuary for the guerrillas and allowing them to slip across the border to mount attacks.
But Pakistan says recent operations it has launched against militants in its tribal borderlands are proof of its commitment to the "war on terror."
In another incident involving suspected militants, a soldier from the U.S.-led force was slightly hurt in a gunbattle on the outskirts of Kabul Saturday night.
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