KABUL, 25 July 2006 — Hundreds of Taleban fighters firing rocket-propelled grenades yesterday attacked a district headquarters in western Afghanistan, killing three police and wounding seven, amid of a flurry of suicide attacks, roadside bombings and shootings that claimed lives across the country. The attack in western Farah province was one of the Taleban’s boldest strikes in that long quiet region and could reflect a drive by militants to expand their fight against Afghan and US-led coalition forces beyond insurgency-wracked southern and eastern provinces.

A suicide car-bomber, meanwhile, seriously wounded two US-led coalition soldiers near Kandahar, and in another incident, four suspected suicide attackers riding two motorcycles died in a confrontation with Afghan police. In the west, gunmen killed two Afghans working for international aid agency World Vision who had been delivering medicine. And in the east, two coalition soldiers were wounded Sunday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

This was the latest in a bloody wave of violence between resurgent Taleban-led rebels and Afghan and foreign troops, and comes as NATO-led forces prepare to take over command of security operations in the hard-line militia’s former southern heartland. The heaviest fighting took place in Bakwa, a town in western Farah province, which has been spared from the worst of the recent violence that has claimed more than 800 lives, mostly militants, since mid-May.

About 400 Taleban militants riding in about 35 pickup trucks arrived in the town late Sunday and launched a heavy assault on a district police and administration headquarters using dozens of machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, said Gen. Sayed Aga Saqib, provincial police chief. The militants fled back toward neighboring Helmand province after a five-hour battle, carrying an unknown number of militant casualties with them from a bloodstained battleground. The clash left three police dead, and seven wounded, he said.

Also in Farah, four suspected suicide attackers riding on two explosive-laden motorbikes were killed after police challenged them as they drove through the provincial capital late Sunday, Saqib said. Two of the suspected attackers were shot dead by police, while the other two were killed when police shot at their bike and detonated their explosives, Saqib said. A boy passerby also was killed in the explosion, while the child’s father was wounded, Saqib said.

Meanwhile, a suicide car-bomber seriously wounded two US-led coalition soldiers yesterday when he rammed their convoy as they patrolled with Afghan Army soldiers in Daman district of southern Kandahar province, on the main highway to the capital of Kabul, said Col. Tom Collins, a coalition spokesman. The coalition declined to reveal the wounded soldiers nationalities or identities.

Maj. Scott Lundy, another coalition spokesman said their conditions were “serious but not life-threatening.” “It does not take much to train a suicide attacker,” said Collins, speaking of the rebels’ newest and recently most lethal weapon. “All it takes is a warped mind and somebody who is willing to bet it all,” he said.

In eastern Afghanistan, an attacker traveling in a taxi from neighboring Pakistan exploded two grenades at a border police checkpoint in Khost province late Sunday, killing a civilian and wounding three others, police said. The attacker threw the first grenade at police, but failed to hurt anyone.

As NATO confronts its biggest challenge in Afghanistan, officials fear that hopes for stability could be undermined by donors reneging on pledges to help rebuild.