Taliban attacks kills two Afghan soldiers

Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms attacked a remote Nato base in eastern Afghanistan today, leaving two Afghan soldiers dead and 11 alliance soldiers wounded, a statement from Nato said.

A suicide bomber, meanwhile, attacked a provincial governor also in the east, killing four people and wounding eight others. The governor escaped unharmed.

The militants wearing Afghan army uniforms approached the Nato’s forward operating base in mountainous Nuristan province, before launching the attack, the alliance said in a statement.

The attack left two Afghan soldiers dead and 11 Nato troops wounded, it said. Nato did not identify the nationality of the wounded troops.

Most of the troops in the east are American.

“This is another example of the Taliban extremists ignoring international law of armed conflict,” said Lt. Col. Claudia Foss, spokeswoman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force. She was referring to the militants’ use of Afghan army uniforms to conduct the attack.

In Khost province, meanwhile, a suicide bomber attacked the six-vehicle convoy carrying Khost Gov. Arsallah Jamal close to the capital of the province, a region where Taliban and al-Qaida linked militants are believed to operate, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary.

“It was an attack on me,” Jamal said.

Two of the dead were Jamal’s body guards, while the other two were passers-by, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The attack happened hours after gunmen in southern Afghanistan abducted the mayor of Gereshk, a town in the opium-growing province of Helmand, said Abdul Manaf Khan, the Gereshk district chief.

Dur Ali Shah was travelling with two of his sons and another man to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah on a treacherous stretch of road, Khan said. Only Shar was taken, Khan said.

Authorities have launched a search and rescue operation, he said.

Abductions have become a key insurgent tactic in recent months in their attempts to destabilise the country, targeting both Afghan officials and foreigners helping with reconstruction efforts.

A group of 23 South Koreans and two Germans were taken hostage in separate incidents last month in central Afghanistan. Two of the Koreans were shot to death, two have been released but the rest remain hostage. One of the German men was shot to death. The other remains a captive.