Taleban militants killed seven policemen and beheaded two civilians, while an Afghan soldier was shot dead after he opened fire on US troops, government and army officials said Thursday.
US and Afghan forces meanwhile killed four "enemy" in the south, scene of regular attacks by loyalists of the Taleban regime ousted in 2001, and a senior police officer was killed by suspected insurgents near the capital Kabul.
The seven policemen were shot in an ambush Wednesday on a highway between Uruzgan province and Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taleban, Uruzgan governor Jan Mohammad told AFP.
A man identifying himself as a spokesman for the Taleban, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the ambush in a telephone call to AFP.
"We ambushed the police convoy, killed a big number of them and destroyed their vehicles and seized a radio, two vehicles and weapons," he said.
In another incident in Uruzgan, Taleban insurgents abducted two civilians on Monday and beheaded them, governor Mohammad said.
The killings led to a security force sweep in which two Taleban rebels were arrested and eight motorcycles seized, the governor said.