Suspected Taleban insurgents on motorbikes opened fire on a police checkpoint in volatile southern Afghanistan Sunday, killing five policemen, a witness and doctor said.
Four attackers drove up to the checkpoint in a village on the outskirts of southern Kandahar city and started firing, said a witness who gave his name only as Abdullah.
Four of the policemen were shot dead and one died on the way to hospital, a doctor said. Three other officers were wounded, one of them critically, he said, asking to not be identified.
Police would not immediately confirm the attack.
Purported Taleban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the attackers were from the Taleban movement, which has been waging an insurgency since being removed from government in late 2001.
"The guerrilla attack was carried out by four of our mujahedin (holy warriors)," Ahmadi told reporters by telephone.
Another four policemen were shot dead in neighbouring Helmand at midnight on Friday by a man who had introduced himself during the day and spent several hours at their remote police checkpoint.
When the policemen went to sleep after their evening meal, the assailant grabbed a rifle and opened fire on them, Grishk district deputy police chief Amanullah said.
The Taleban said the assailant was one of their followers.
Taleban insurgents also set ablaze Saturday several trucks supplying goods for US-led troops in Helmand. The trucks were torched because they were supplying "infidel Americans", Ahmadi said Sunday.
The Islamist Taleban were toppled from government in a US-led operation in late 2001 because they did not surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Southern Afghanistan, including Helmand and Kandahar provinces, has been badly hit by an insurgency launched by the militants after their ouster.
More than 2,000 people have died since the beginning of 2005 in violence mostly linked to the insurgency.