INSURGENTS KILL 29 IN SEPARATE STRIKES ACROSS AFGHANISTAN

KABUL: Insurgents killed at least 29 Afghan security forces in separate attacks as many marked the 17th anniversary of the killing of a prominent anti-taliban leader, officials said on Sunday. Hakmat Durani, spokesman for the police chief of Maidan Wardak province, said the Taliban attacked a district headquarters west of Kabul late Saturday, killing 10 police officers, including a district chief, and setting off a gunbattle. He added that dozens of insurgents were killed in retaliatory airstrikes by the air force, and that reinforcements were being sent to the area.

In a separate attack on Saturday, militants targeted a checkpoint in the western Herat province, killing nine security forces and wounding six others, said Gelani Farhad, the provincial governor’s spokesman.

Meanwhile in northern Baghlan province, Taliban fighters attacked security check points, killing 5 army soldiers, according to Ghafor Ahmad Jawed, spokesman for the defence ministry.a spokesman for the provincial police chief in Baghlan, said four officers were killed in that attack.

The attacks came on the eve of the anniversary of the killing of Ahmad Shah Masoud, who led the resistance against the Taliban in the late 1990s and was killed by suicide bombers two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. AP