Taliban gunmen have surrounded a police compound in a the volatile southern province of Helmand after killing 19 policemen and seven soldiers in an ongoing siege, the senior police officer said on Monday.
Napas Khan, the police chief in the Naw Zad district, told The Associated Press by telephone from inside the compound that the insurgents had advanced to within 20 meters (65 feet) of the compound. They had seized police vehicles and weapons and blocked all roads out of Naw Zad.
“We need an immediate response from the government,” Khan said.
Also on Monday, a suicide truck bomb attack and a separate roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan killed 11 people and wounded dozens more, as the Taliban clashed with supporters of the Islamic State group in the west, officials said.
