Militants kill 8 policeman in volatile northern Afghan province of Kunduz, police say

Militants kill 8 policeman in northern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents killed eight Afghan police in an attack in the country’s increasingly volatile north Thursday, while it emerged that a police driver who shot dead two Spanish police trainers and a translator reportedly had family links to the Taliban.

More than 10 militants attacked a police checkpoint outside the northern city of Kunduz, said provincial police chief Abdul Raziq Yaqoubi, adding they suspected the attackers were from Russia’s restive Chechnya region who are active in the surrounding province, also called Kunduz.

He said two or three of the militants were wounded when the police fought back. The militants apparently hoped to steal the policemen’s weapons, but were beaten back before they could do so, he said.

Kunduz has seen an increasing number of attacks on Afghan and foreign coalition forces who rely on a supply line running south through the province from neighboring Tajikistan. Foreign fighters from Chechnya, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf infiltrate the region from the rugged mountainous border with Pakistan to the east.

Investigations, meanwhile, continued into Wednesday’s attack at a base in the northwestern province of Badghis used by members of the Spanish paramilitary Civil Guard to train Afghan police.

Majid Khan Shakib, a member of parliament from Badghis, said the shooter’s sister was married to the provincial Taliban commander and the shooting was engineered to incite an uprising against the Spanish. The shooter was killed at the scene by other Spanish police.

After word of the shooting spread, several hundred angry men gathered outside the walls of the Spanish compound, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great,” hurling stones and ripping down fences around the installation. At least one vehicle was torched and 25 people were injured by gunshots, although it was unclear who was shooting.

“The Taliban infiltrated the crowd yesterday and agitated everybody. They told people the Spanish were there to colonize the country,” Shakib said.

Spain’s Interior Ministry initially said the officers’ driver opened fire on the men during a training exercise Wednesday. The driver was killed shortly afterward in a hail of gunfire.

However, Spanish media and Afghan officials said Thursday the shooter was a driver with the Afghan police who occassionally also drove the Spanish officers. He carried an unregistered Kalashnikov rifle to a security checkpoint at the camp entrance and opened fire, provincial police chief Sayed Ahmad Sami said.

Two hundred police reinforcements were being sent to the area, local police commander Hekramuddin Yawar said.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said deliberate killings by Taliban infiltrators were “still very isolated,” adding that training Afghan security forces would remain the foundation of a strategy to pass responsibility for security to Afghan forces.

“There are thousands of Afghan army and police being trained every day by NATO soldiers, and it works well. Unfortunately, there are still occasionally incidents like these,” Appathurai said.

The string of attacks in the north shows the Taliban and their allies are capable of fomenting instability beyond their traditional strongholds in the east and south, which is the focus of U.S.-led military operations. Provinces in the north had been largely spared the violence that have affected provinces such Helmand and Kandahar in the south and Logar, Wardak, Kunar and Khost in the east.

Also Thursday, a candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections said 10 of her campaign workers were kidnapped while traveling in the western province of Herat.

Fawzya Galani said she lost contact with the group at about 6 p.m. Wednesday. Villagers told her armed men had stopped the group and driven off in their two vehicles, Galani said.

No one claimed responsibility and local district chief Nisar Ahmad Popal said it wasn’t clear whether the kidnappers were political rivals or members of the Taliban, which is seeking to sabotage the Sept. 18 elections for 249 seats in the lower house of parliament.

“We are trying to find them and our efforts are continuing,” Popal said.

Citing security concerns Afghanistan’s electoral commission has reduced the number of voting sites for the elections by almost 1,000 to 5,897. It said Thursday that number could drop further if voter safety could not be ensured.

Many Afghans say they plan not to vote, either because of insurgent threats or out of disgust with rampant corruption among government officials.

NATO has been stepping up operations ahead of the elections, and said Thursday it had detained several insurgents in Khost province along the Pakistan border while pursuing senior members of the Haqqani network, an Islamist militant group with deep links to al-Qaida.

The alliance said Afghan and coalition forces captured two Haqqani and several Taliban leaders during 35 separate operations this week.

NATO also reported that three Afghan civilians were killed Wednesday by a homemade bomb in Kandahar’s Arghandab district, a Taliban stronghold that has had a growing coalition presence.

Two Taliban commanders were also killed Wednesday in fighting with a joint Afghan-Taliban force in neighboring Uruzgan province, along with 12 regular insurgent fighters, the Afghan National Police reported. Four insurgents were captured in the operation, the police said.

Also, U.S. troops joined Afghan army and border police troops in operations in Kandahar province aiming to clear out Taliban fighters. Large numbers of suspected Taliban had been detained and explosions and gunfire could be heard along the border with Pakistan, area resident Ahmad Zia said.

No coalition casualties were reported in the actions.

Associated Press Writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.