Twenty Taliban militants were killed in a battle with police in southern Afghanistan Monday, while an Afghan boy was killed and two German soldiers wounded in attacks in the east, officials said. Fighting erupted in the southern province of Zabul on Sunday after militants attacked a police patrol that had struck a roadside bomb, the interior ministry said.
One policeman was killed in the ambush, it said in a statement. "The police responded to the attack and killed 20 enemies. The fighting lasted more than 10 hours," the statement said. The fighters left their dead behind after retreating, it added. Zabul is a flashpoint in the Taliban insurgency launched soon after the United States ousted the Taliban regime in an invasion at the end of 2001. The insurgency has intensified since 2005.
In another attack, a bomb hidden in a tape recorder blew up in an electronics repair shop in a busy market in the eastern town of Khost on Monday and killed a 13-year-old boy, provincial officials said. Two other people were superficially hurt in the blast in the market which sells music, they said.
There was no claim of responsibility for the bomb. Khost has been attacked several times this year, with Islamist Taliban claiming the violence as part of their campaign against a government backed by international troops. On Sunday, meanwhile, two German soldiers deployed as part of Nato's force in Afghanistan were wounded in a gun battle that followed a roadside bomb explosion in the north-eastern part of the country, the force told AFP.