Agence France-Presse,
HERAT, Afghanistan: Taliban rebels overran a western Afghan district, sparking a fierce battle Tuesday that left seven civilians and a policeman dead and 20 militants killed or wounded, officials said.
A soldier with the US-led coalition, an Afghan spy chief and 20 militants were killed in other incidents linked to the spiralling insurgency by the hardline regime, which was ousted by international forces in late 2001.
Local Taliban carried out the raid on Gulistan district of western Farah province on Monday night and were joined by about 400 rebels from neighbouring Helmand, provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Sarjang said.
“Police made a tactical retreat, the battle is ongoing now. No one is in control of the district centre at the moment, police are in the outskirts of the district centre fighting Taliban,” Sarjang told AFP.
The police chief said local people who supported the police were killed by militants on Tuesday.
“The Taliban sprayed seven civilians with bullets in the district today, killing them instantly,” Sarjang said. “Up to 20 Taliban have been killed and wounded. One policeman was martyred and three injured so far.”
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed that the hardline movement's fighters had captured Gulistan. “We are in control of the district now,” he said.
But the police chief denied the claim, saying that Afghan forces and NATO-led troops were being deployed in support of police “to retake total control.”
NATO's International Security Assistance Force said however that it was not involved.
The Taliban have kept control of at least one district in Helmand province, Musa Qala, for almost a year now. They have seized other districts, mainly in the south, for short periods of time.
Separately NATO and US-led coalition forces plus Afghan troopers launched a “clean-up” operation in the Arghandab district of southern Kandahar province, killing 20 militants, provincial police Sayed Aqa Saqib said.
Taliban spokesman Ahmadi and another purported spokesman for the group claimed that the militants had also taken control of Arghandab and that 30 policemen had surrendered to them.
But police said the rebels had only infiltrated the outlying areas of the district.
Meanwhile a US-led coalition soldier was killed Tuesday in a military operation west of Kandahar city. Another foreign soldier and an Afghan policeman were wounded, the US military said in a statement.
The dead soldier was the 190th foreign service member to be killed in Afghanistan this year. International forces in Afghanistan do not release the nationalities of their casualties, leaving that task to their home countries.
In addition an Afghan spy chief and three colleagues including his driver died in a roadside bombing Tuesday in eastern Laghman province,
The extremist Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan and have since been waging a bloody insurgency which has claimed the lives of thousands of people, mostly militants.
There are more than 55,000 foreign soldiers fighting the growing insurgency alongside Afghan forces.
