KANDAHAR, 26 April 2005 — Two Afghan policemen and four Taleban guerrillas were killed in a rebel attack on a district headquarters in the southern province of Kandahar, police said yesterday.
Taleban fighters attacked the headquarters of Registan district late on Sunday, killing two policemen guarding the compound, said Kandahar police official Gen. Salim Khan.
“In our counterattack, four Taleban fighters were killed and two wounded,” Khan told Reuters.
A Taleban spokesman, contacted by telephone, denied that any Taleban fighters had died in the clash and said four policemen had been killed. Taleban attacks have picked up in recent weeks, especially in the south and east of the country, after a winter lull.
The attack came hours after an explosion hit a convoy carrying Romanian soldiers in another part of Kandahar, the former stronghold of the Taleban regime forced from power by US-led forces in late 2001.
The Romanian Defense Ministry said one Romanian soldier was killed and two were wounded in the blast, which an Afghan official said was triggered by Taleban fighters.
In other violence, two US and two Afghan government soldiers were wounded when their patrol came under attack in neighboring Uruzgan province, also on Sunday, the US military said in a statement. Yesterday, nearly 300 people complained to authorities in the eastern city of Jalalabad about searches and unfair detentions by US troops, a provincial official said.
Meanwhile, the electoral body yesterday said nominations for the upcoming parliamentary election will begin on April 30 and will last through May 19.
Gen. Ayub Assil, deputy chairman for the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), told reporters in Kabul that the Jirga (Lower House) and provincial council elections will be held simultaneously on Sept. 18.
“These elections are the major turning point in Afghanistan’s turbulent history. With these elections we shall finally have a democratic, representative government and end the rule of gun,” said Bissmillah Bissmil, chairman of the JEMB.
