QALAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — A series of bomb blasts killed six police officers and two soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said, the latest in a surge in militant attacks targeting security forces.
Five policemen were killed when a roadside bomb similar to those used by Taliban insurgents battling the government tore through their vehicle in the province of Zabul, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said.
A separate bombing elsewhere in the restive province killed another police officer, he told AFP.
"In one explosion in Naw Bahar district we lost five police. In another explosion near Qalat we lost another police officer," Sarjang said, referring to the capital of Zabul province.
The district chief of Naw Bahar said that two Afghan National Army soldiers were killed in a third bomb blast in the area on Monday.
"There was a roadside explosion," he told AFP.
An AFP reporter travelling on the Kabul-Kandahar highway which goes through Zabul said the road was closed because of incidents.
Militant attacks and a roadside bomb had on Sunday killed 11 policemen and one soldier in the troubled southern Helmand province.
The Taliban threatened last month to step up their attacks on government officials and troops, who are braced for another intense year in an insurgency that was its deadliest in 2008.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001 and are battling Afghan and international forces to take back power.
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