Two police officers and four suspected Taliban rebels were killed in clashes hours before key Afghan elections on Sunday, while a United Nations staffer was injured by a rocket strike, officials said.
Insurgents fired two rockets early on Sunday at a UN Children’s Fund warehouse in a UN compound on the outskirts of Kabul, one of which exploded, police and a UN official said.
”There was a small fire. One local staff member was slightly injured,” said UN spokesperson Adrian Edwards.
In another incident, rebels attacked a security post in the eastern province of Khost overnight, killing two police officers and wounding two US soldiers and an Afghan soldier, Khost police chief Mohammed Ayob said.
Three Taliban fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight in Yaqobi district, about 130km south-east of the capital, Kabul, Ayob said.
”Their bodies are still at the site,” he said.
Afghan security forces have surrounded the area and are searching for the militants, he said. The clash has not affected polling, he said.
”The voting process is ongoing as normal in the district,” he said.
Separately, a suspected Taliban militant was killed in an assault on a polling station late on Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, provincial Governor Mullah Shir Mohammed said.
”In the exchange of fire between police and the Taliban, one militant was killed but there no casualty on the police side and no damage to the polling station,” the governor said.
The Taliban stepped up their four-year-long insurgency ahead of the elections, the first parliamentary vote in Afghanistan in 30 years.
More than 1 000 people have died in violence so far this year, including seven election candidates and hundreds of militants. — Sapa-AFP