KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber hit a police compound in southwestern Afghanistan today, killing two officers and wounding five others, an official said.
The bomber tried to ram a vehicle packed with explosives inside police chief’s compound in the town of Zaranj of Nimroz province, said provincial deputy police chief Asadullah Sherzad.
The vehicle exploded at the compound walls, killing two policemen and wounding five others, Sherzad said.
In neighboring Helmand province, meanwhile, police arrested a senior Taliban commander who has escaped twice from prisons in Afghanistan.
The officers nabbed Mullah Naqibullah during a clash that left three insurgents dead yesterday, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.
Naqibullah was with a group of militants dressed in police uniforms who ambushed a police convoy north of the province’s capital of Lashkar Gah, Andiwal said.
The ensuing gun battle left three militants dead, and wounded two policemen and Naqibullah, who was taken into custody, Andiwal said.
In neighboring Kandahar province, the chief of the Panjwayi district Shah Baran claimed that an airstrike yesterday killed three men irrigating land close to a road. He said he believed the men may have been mistaken for militants planting roadside bombs.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said their troops targeted four insurgents who were planting roadside bombs near a NATO base, killing three and wounding the fourth.
An ISAF spokesman, Squadron Leader Iain Bright, said there were no reports of civilians casualties in the strike.
The differing accounts could not be independently verified due to the remoteness of the area.
In a separate incident, a mine struck a civilian vehicle today in southwestern Nimroz province, killing the driver and wounding two civilians, said provincial police chief Mohammad Ayub Badakhshi.
Badakhshi blamed the militants for planting the mine on the road frequently used by foreign and Afghan troops.
Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.