Two killed as Taliban storm prison

KHOST: An insurgent and a prisoner were killed early on Saturday after suspected Taliban insurgents stormed a prison and police headquarters in southeastern Khost province, officials said.

Suspected Taliban insurgents attacked the district headquarters of Ali-Sher with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, blew up a weapons stock and killed a detainee in police custody. “In last night’s exchange of fire, one detainee in police captivity died in the Taliban attack and two soldiers were wounded,” Naqeebullah Asmati, the deputy intelligence director said. The authorities could not ask for support because the district had lost all communication links with the provincial capital, Asmati said. Provincial police chief Mohammed Ayoob said that police had also killed a rebel overnight in Ali-Sher district.

Khost is an insurgency-hit province, which shares a long porous border with Pakistan. Afghan officials have accused militants of crossing over from Pakistan to launch attacks in Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan denies. Afghanistan held its first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years last weekend without any major violence despite Taliban threats to disrupt the vote. Two US soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb in the Afghan south, while there were conflicting reports on the whereabouts of a Taliban commander earlier believed to have been surrounded, officials said on Saturday.

The Taliban failed to disrupt legislative elections last Sunday when voting was largely peaceful across the country but more than a dozen people have been killed in attacks since then. The US military said the two soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a bomb while they were on patrol northwest of the southern city of Kandahar on Friday.

Eight insurgents fired on the patrol after the blast and three of them were later captured, the US military said in a statement. The two wounded men were in a stable condition. agencies

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