Taliban gun down Afghan intelligence official

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Taliban guerillas shot
dead an Afghan intelligence official on Wednesday, the second
senior security officer to be killed in 24 hours.

Violence in Afghanistan, already at a high level,
intensified last week when the Taliban announced they had
launched a spring offensive in their campaign to oust foreign
troops and overthrow the Western-backed government.

The provincial intelligence official, Abdul Hakim, was
gunned down as he was walking to his office in Ghazni province,
southwest of the capital, the provincial police chief said.

One of the gunmen was captured as he tried to flee on a
motorbike, said the police chief, Abdur Rahman Sarjang, who
said the attackers were Taliban.

Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing of another
provincial intelligence officer in the southern province of
Nimroz on Tuesday.

Four Taliban fighters were killed in a clash with Afghan
security forces on the same day in the neighboring province of
Helmand.

The violence comes as NATO members are sending thousands of
more troops to Afghanistan as the alliance prepares to take
over responsibility for the dangerous south from U.S. forces.

As NATO members including Britain, Canada and the
Netherlands build up the numbers of their troops in
Afghanistan, the United States is aiming to cut its strength
from more than 19,000 troops to about 16,500.