Eleven police officers defected to the Taliban in southern Afghanistan while two government officials were killed in separate incidents elsewhere, officials said Monday. The policemen left their checkpoint and defected to the rebels in the southern Helmand province, the governor's office said.
"Eight of these police had been registered while the three were new recruits to the local police," it said. "Their commander Mohammad Khan might have possibly encouraged the others in his team to defect." The governor's office said the officers took weapons and motorcycles. It was the third reported defection in the last month. The head of a local development council and his brother were killed in the northern Afghanistan province of Sar-e-Pul, the provincial governor said Monday.
"A criminal on the run called Hussain Iftikhari who has a close relationship with the Taliban insurgents entered the house of Mullah Mujahid along with other armed men and killed him and his brother Bahauddin," Abdul Jabbar Haqbeen told dpa. The incident occurred on the outskirts of the provincial capital. The governor said he could not confirm local media reports that the two victims had been beheaded. In the western Ghor province a district police chief was killed by a bomb and three others were injured, a provincial spokesman said.