KABUL: A roadside bomb in western Afghanistan and clashes in the volatile south left 11 police officers dead, officials said yesterday.

The bomb killed six police guards in Herat province yesterday as they traveled to a hydroelectric dam that is under protection from insurgent attack.

The officers were from the Afghan Public Protection Force, a government-run force that provides security for international supply convoys, aid groups and foreign-funded reconstruction sites.

The blast ripped through the vehicle as the men were heading to Obe district in Herat, where India is rebuilding a major hydroelectric dam.

“All six police guards were killed,” Sher Agha, the Obe district police chief, said.

There was no claim of responsibility but similar bombs are often blamed on the Taleban, the main militant group waging an insurgency against the government in Kabul.

Taleban insurgents attacked several police posts in the southern province of Helmand on Monday, triggering two days of clashes at the start of the traditional fighting season.

The interior ministry spokesman in Kabul said about 100 insurgents were involved in the offensive in the tinderbox district of Sangin, with five police and 26 militants killed.

“The fighting continued throughout Monday and last night. The Taleban have now been pushed back,” Omar Zwak, the Helmand governor spokesman, said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said none of its soldiers were involved in the fighting and put the number of attackers at less than 50.

“There were about 10 groups of four to five fighters each doing drive-by shootings against five police checkpoints,” Col. Thomas Collins, an ISAF spokesman said in a statement.

“Local Afghan security forces called for (Afghan) reinforcements and none of the checkpoints were overrun.” Sangin district has been a hotspot of fighting for several years, with British and US forces battling against Taleban insurgents.

Afghan soldiers have recently taken over increased responsibility across the country as 100,000 ISAF troops start to gradually withdraw from the battlefield ahead of the end of combat missions next year.

Women in prison

About 600 Afghan women and girls are behind bars for so-called moral crimes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday, the highest number since the Taleban were toppled almost twelve years ago.

Running away from home, usually from abuse and forced marriage, and alleged adultery, which often involves rape, have landed most of the 600 women in prison. That figure is an increase of 50 percent over the last 18 months.

“That increase reflects a shameful lack and failure of political will by both the government of Afghanistan and its foreign donors and allies,” Phelim Kine, HRW’s deputy director of Asia, told reporters.

Women have won back rights of education and work since the Taleban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, but there are fears these freedoms could be curtailed after most NATO-led forces leave by the end of next year.

Rights workers and some Afghan female lawmakers accuse President Hamid Karzai’s government of doing too little to protect women — allegations his administration denies.

The New York-based rights group said the statistics on girls and women in prison came from the Interior Ministry.

The findings come days after parliament failed to ratify an Elimination of Violence Against Women law, which would have strengthened a 2009 presidential decree banning forced and underage marriage, beatings and rape.

Conservative religious lawmakers blocked the decree’s ratification, arguing some articles were un-Islamic, such as keeping the legal age for women to marry at 16 and maintaining the existence of shelters for domestic abuse victims.

“If the Parliament were to in future reverse this law, that would have very, very serious consequences for Afghanistan,” said HRW Afghanistan researcher Heather Barr. On Monday, the United Nations urged the government to ratify the law.

Barr said if the abuse of girls and women continued, countries that help Afghanistan might not be willing to.

While HRW said it was difficult to pinpoint the reason for the increase in the imprisonment of women for “moral crimes,” Barr said incarceration of both men and women had risen across the country in recent years.

The pending withdrawal of foreign troops and dwindling global interest in Afghanistan may also play a role.