Taliban clash with Afghan forces

21/12/2009| IslamWeb

Afghan police have clashed with Taliban fighters who attacked a building near a police station in the provincial capital of the eastern province of Paktia, officials have said.

The Taliban fighters launched the assault in Gardez shortly before 10am local time (05:30 GMT) on Monday and opened fire on security forces, Rahullah Samon, a provincial government spokesman, said.

General Azizuddin Wardak, the provincial police chief, told AFP: "It's now over. They were two people and both have been killed."

Three civilians, including a woman, and a police officer were wounded, he said.

'Heavily armed'

The fighters were armed with rifles, rocket launchers and grenades, and were wearing explosive vests, Wardak said.

Their bombs detonated under police fire, he said. He did not give further details.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told the Associated Press that the attackers were targeting the police station near the building they had attacked.

Eastern Afghanistan has seen some of the worst violence by the Taliban, which is targeting the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and 113,000 US and Nato troops in the country.

Barack Obama, the US president, and Nato allies have pledged to deploy an extra 37,000 troops to Afghanistan, which will take the total number of foreign troops in the country to 150,000.

PHOTO CAPTION

Map locating Gardez in Afghanistan.

Al-Jazeera