Taliban killed in battle with Afghan police

Police killed three Taliban and captured a former mid-level official from the hardline militia’s ousted government in separate incidents, officials said today.

Around 50 Taliban crossed into a remote area of the southern Paktika province from Pakistan and traded heavy machine gun fire with police late yesterday, said Sayyed Jamal, spokesman for the governor.

The militants slipped back into Pakistan after the fight, he said.

In another part of Paktika, police arrested Mullah Akhtar Mohammad, a former director of refugee affairs, along with a group of five other men fleeing from neighbouring Helmand province overnight, he said. One of the men was wounded, he said.

They were fleeing from the same province were four British troops died battling over the last week trying to dislodge Taliban fighters.

In Helmand, police fending off an attack by Taliban militants killed two insurgents overnight, said provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhail.

Police were not hurt, Malakhail said.

In central Khost province, a sack hanging from a mulberry tree exploded as Afghan troops drove by on a busy road, wounding two soldiers and one civilian, said Gen. Mohammad Ayub, provincial police chief.

As the government struggled with resurgent Taliban militants, its young Parliament marked another step towards democracy, approving five appointments to complete President Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet.

Karzai nominated the candidates to fill slots left empty when Parliament rejected five of the 25 people he initially chose for his Cabinet in April. The Cabinet is the first approved by the Parliament since it was elected last year.

The new members approved yesterday include the Cabinet’s only woman, Minister of Women’s Affairs Hosn Banu Ghazanfar, who is the dean of the literature and language faculty at Kabul University.

The other portfolios filled were the ministries of commerce and industries, economy and labour, transport and aviation, and culture and youth. All of the new ministers were educated abroad.

Growing cynicism about Karzai’s government is diluting Afghans’ enthusiasm over the progress towards democracy following the 2005 elections for the country’s first representative Parliament in more than 30 years.

The government is increasingly viewed as ineffective, tainted by corruption, and failing to deliver security, services or jobs to much of the country.

Making matters worse, Taliban rebels have stepped up attacks this year, particularly in southern provinces, sparking the bloodiest fighting in nearly five years.

Nato forces have embarked on a mission to defeat the rebels and create the conditions for much-needed development to take root in the south. Nine Nato troops have been killed in the past week since the alliance took command of security.

Tom Koenigs, the top UN official in Afghanistan, warned yesterday that the Taliban still posed a threat to Afghanistan and that the insurgency will not be defeated quickly.

“We should be more careful if we are going to tell you that (the insurgency) is going to be over in a year,” Koenigs told reporters.