Number of dead in Afghanistan in ‘07 tops 6,500 as Taliban target police

TALIBAN militants attacked a police checkpoint in the south and killed 16 officers, officials said yesterday.

Seven Afghan police and soldiers were reported dead elsewhere as Afghanistan’s bloodiest year since the Taliban’s removal drew to a close.

Violence in Afghanistan this year reached the highest level since the US invasion toppled the Taliban militant movement in 2001.

More than 6,500 people — mostly militants — died in 2007, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials. The highest American toll since the 2001 invasion was also realised with 110 US soldiers killed in the country.

Afghan policemen were manning a checkpoint in the Maywand district of Kandahar province on Saturday when a large group of militants attacked, said Zemerai Bashary, the Interior Ministry spokesman.

“We still have not found the bodies, but police in Kandahar have launched a search operation,” he said.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the group was responsible for the killings.

The militants have repeatedly attacked the checkpoint — situated near Highway 1, Afghanistan’s main thoroughfare — over the last year, part of the reason so many police were stationed there.

Taliban fighters have shied away from attacking international military forces and the Afghan army, which are better trained and better equipped than the police.

More than 850 police officers have been killed in attacks since March — the beginning of the Islamic calendar — said Bashary. That represents over one percent of the countrywide police force of 73,000 officers.

In Uruzgan province, four Afghan soldiers were killed in a mine explosion on Sunday, while one soldier was killed in Paktia province in another blast, the Ministry of Defence said.

Spain’s King Juan Carlos, meanwhile, made an unannounced visit to Spanish troops based in western Afghanistan, the royal palace said.

In the country’s west, Carlos travelled with the Spanish defence minister to the Spanish base in Herat.

Spain has some 700 troops based in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force. The soldiers were first deployed in 2002.