Insurgents led by an Uzbek militant group attacked an Afghan police station killing one policeman, with two militants later killed in a Nato air strike, officials said Sunday. The insurgents attacked Ali Abad district police headquarters in the northern province of Kunduz late Saturday, district chief Haseebullah Mohtasham told AFP.
"One policeman was killed in the attack," he said. Nato said coalition troops fired on the militants' truck from the air, leaving two militants dead and wounding several others.
Nato said the attack was led by a commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group known to attack Afghan security forces. It said the group also channelled weapons to insurgents in another troubled district in the area.
Northern Afghanistan has been relatively peaceful compared to the insurgency heartlands in the south, but this year militants have stepped up attacks in some northern border provinces including Kunduz. The IMU, created in 1998 and opposed to the government of President Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, carved out bases in the north of Afghanistan under the Taliban 1996-2001 regime.