Taliban insurgents killed 13 Afghan troops in an ambush of their convoy in north western Afghanistan, while Nato-led troops fired on insurgents inside Pakistan, officials said on Friday.
More than 300 militants attacked the Afghan forces’ convoy, which was transporting 47 vehicles for their units in Bala Murghab district of Badghis province late on Thursday, said Naeem Khan, a border police official.
In a several-hour battle, 13 Afghan soldiers and policemen were killed and 11 others were wounded, said Abdul Ghani Sabri, the deputy provincial governor. Seven Taliban fighters were also killed, Sabri said.
Sixteen other Afghan troops were captured by the militants, who also took most of the 47 vehicles being transported in the convoy, Khan said. Following the clash, helicopters were dispatched to the area and fired at the militants, Khan said.
About 100 men threw stones at police in Kabul on Friday in a demonstration after a traffic accident there involving US-led troops killed two civilians, an AFP reporter said.The US-led coalition said it regretted the accident in which one of its vehicles was hit by a civilian minivan that then ploughed into a roadside shop.
“There were four injured and two of them were martyred,” Kabul city criminal police department chief General Alishah Paktiawal told AFP.Witnesses said the dead were a man who had been in the minivan and a young boy at a butcher.“I was putting meat for him in a plastic bag… he was killed on the spot,” said a 28-year-old butcher who gave his name only as Zalgai.
Also, a one-time spokesman for the Taliban was shot dead with three family members by attackers wearing Afghan police uniforms, officials and relatives said on Friday. Abdul Haq Daqiq was killed in his home in the eastern province of Nangarhar at midnight Thursday, they said.