The Taliban has launched a new operation targeting government and foreign forces in Afghanistan, a spokesman said today, as two policemen died in an ambush in the volatile south.

Suspected Taliban militants attacked a district office in central Afghanistan in a clash that left 15 militants and two officers dead, the ministry of interior said in a statement today.

Suicide bombers struck in Afghanistan’s two main cities today, killing three civilians and wounding six, while seven suspected militants died in fighting with coalition and Nato forces in outlying provinces.

Militants ambushed a security patrol near the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing a district police chief and two officers, and security forces thwarted plans for three bombings, a government spokesman said today.

The US military was today investigating an explosion at a weapons cache in Afghanistan that killed seven American soldiers and wounded three in what Afghan officials said was an accident.

Hats and shoes littered a blood-stained field in a desolate Afghan village in the aftermath of an attack by a US warplane targeting a terror suspect that mistakenly killed nine children.