Taliban insurgents dressed in police uniforms and driving in a police car attacked a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan’s restive Helmand province on Wednesday, killing 14 police officers, an Afghan official said.
The attack, the latest in a stepped-up campaign by the Taliban targeting Afghan forces and government institutions, underscores the tenaciousness of their insurgency even as the group is plagued by infighting and rivalries following last month’s announcement of the death of its longtime leader, Mullah Omar.
In Wednesday’s attack, Taliban fighters drove through the checkpoint in the district of Musa Qala and attacked the police officers from behind, according to Bashir Ahmad Shaker, a provincial council member in Helmand.
Helmand Governor Mirza Khan Rahimi said two other policemen were wounded in the attack, which he called a “conspiracy against the police”.
Rahimi said the police were caught unprepared because an earlier telephone call had informed them to expect a visit from police colleagues. “But the visitors were attackers in police uniforms who opened fire and killed them,” Rahimi said, adding that an investigation is underway.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yusouf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack and said the insurgents had captured eight policemen.
Earlier on Wednesday, Afghan authorities recovered the bodies of four men kidnapped in the country’s east last week, officials said, while at least eight others have been newly abducted.
The four bodies, found in Nawur district near the Pakistani border, all had been shot dead, said Asadullah Ensafi, the deputy chief police of Ghazni province. He said three of the men were Hazara, while the fourth was a Sunni Pashtun.
The Hazara are a largely Shia ethnic minority in predominantly Sunni Afghanistan. The group has been targeted by the Taliban and other Sunni extremists in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
Meanwhile, fighting in Baghlan between Afghan forces and the Taliban has killed two police officers, said Jaweed Basharat, the provincial police spokesman. He said the fighting in the Dahana-I-Ghori district began on Tuesday.
The Taliban, who regularly exaggerate their claims, issued a statement, claiming a much higher police casualties figure.