Insurgents kill 9 police in southern Afghanistan

Insurgents staged two attacks against police in Afghanistan on Thursday, killing nine officers and wounding six others, officials said, in the latest violence against the lightly armed force that has born the brunt of rising attacks across the country.

Washington has pushed to significantly increase the number of Afghan police and improve their training as a key part of a revised U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that President Barack Obama is expected to unveil fully on Friday. It is aimed at countering Taliban militants, who have made a comeback following their initial defeat by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

Obama has already pledged to send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and could send even more as part of the administration’s new strategy.
Many of the troops will be sent to the south, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency, where militants attacked a police checkpoint Thursday, killing nine policemen in Helmand province’s Nahri Sarraj district, the Interior Ministry said.

Taliban militants also attacked a police convoy in central Ghazni province Thursday, wounding six policemen, regional police spokesman Iqbal Gul Sapan said. Four militants were killed in the clash in Nani village near the provincial capital, he said.

The Interior Ministry said the police were transporting a militant prisoner at the time, adding that two civilians were wounded in the attack.