US troops kill six Taliban

* Police official killed in bomb explosion

KANDAHAR: US-led troops killed six members of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime in a raid on Tuesday in the southern province of Zabul, a provincial military official said.

The six Taliban were killed in a surprise attack by US-led soldiers in the Sori district of Zabul province, division commander Nimatullah Tokhi told Reuters from Qalat, the provincial capital.

Four US soldiers from a special forces unit were killed when their vehicle hit a mine in Zabul province on Saturday.

“We had tipped the Americans off about the presence of Taliban and they went and killed them,” Tokhi said, adding that US forces apparently suffered no casualties in the gunbattle that followed the attack.

Zabul used to be a stronghold of the Taliban, overthrown by US-led forces in late 2001.

A senior police official was killed in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday when a bomb attached to his office chair exploded, doctors said.

Haji Ajab Shah was killed at the police headquarters of the city, the capital of Nangarhar province, as the workday began.

“His body is in the morgue,” said a doctor at the hospital to which Shah was taken.

The attack was the latest incident in a wave of violence in the run-up to landmark elections in September, most of which has been blamed on remnants of the ousted Taliban regime and their Islamic militant allies including Al Qaeda. agencies

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