Taliban ambush Afghan militia unit, 8 dead

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Taliban guerrillas
ambushed a militia unit working with U.S. forces in southern
Afghanistan, killing two men and capturing and later killing
another six, the leader of the militia group said on Monday.

Militia commander Dawood said the ambush took place late on
Sunday in the southern province of Helmand where 3,300 British
troops will soon be based as part of a NATO plan to expand its
Afghanistan peacekeeping force.

The Taliban later killed the six captured men, he said.

“We’ve found only three bodies but we know the other three
have been killed too,” Dawood told Reuters.

Violence also erupted in neighboring Uruzgan province and a
Taliban spokesman said his fighters had killed some U.S.
troops. A U.S. military spokesman said an operation was going
on and he could not disclose details.

Six Taliban were killed in the fighting in Uruzgan, where
about 1,400 Dutch peacekeepers are due to be based, the
Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted police as saying.

In Kunar province in the east, an Afghan soldier was killed
and five were wounded when their vehicle was hit by a mine
blast and a roadside bomb in Kabul wounded an Afghan soldier,
police said.

The blasts were the latest in a wave of attacks that has
raised fears as NATO countries prepare to send more troops and
the United States aims to cut back its strength in Afghanistan.

Most of the bombs and guerrilla attacks have been in the
south and east, near the border with Pakistan. President Hamid
Karzai says he will raise concern about Taliban operating from
Pakistan when he visits Islamabad this week.

A Taliban commander had earlier said his men had attacked
the militiamen, killing five and capturing six. One Taliban had
been killed, he said.

In some parts of Afghanistan, U.S. forces hire militiamen,
often former faction members, to guard bases and convoys and to
help on patrols.

Helmand and Uruzgan have been plagued by insurgency since
the Taliban were forced from power by U.S and Afghan opposition
troops in late 2001. Both are also opium poppy-growing regions.

About 200 Taliban launched a series of attacks on
government forces in Helmand on February 3, when more than 20
people were killed in the biggest battle in the country in
months.

Troops from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are leading
a planned expansion of Afghanistan’s NATO peacekeeping force
into the south where a separate U.S.-led force has been
fighting the Taliban and hunting militant leaders.

(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL)