KABUL
Ten people were killed when a group of suicide bombers and gunmen conducted a coordinated attack in the Maiwand district of southern Kandahar province in Afghanistan on Monday.
According to provincial officials, five Taliban militants with light weapons and explosive vests attacked a police headquarters and an intelligence service department in the district of Maiwand.
The attack killed the director of the criminal department and four civilians as well as wounding seven others.
“One of the attackers detonated his explosive-laden car at the gate of the police headquarters and four others opened fire after entering the compound. During the firefight, which lasted for an hour, all five Taliban militants were gunned down by Afghan security forces,” provincial governor spokesman Ahmad Zia Durani told the Anadolu Agency.
He added that seven people, including two policemen, were injured in the incident and were sent to hospital.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the incident.
Their attacks in Kandahar, the hometown of the Taliban's fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, have increased over the past several months as U.S. and UK troops ended their combat mission in Afghanistan and vacated their major bases in the southern provinces
Taliban militants intensified their activities after the Afghan government signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with the United States, and later inked the same pact with NATO.
NATO and the U.S. are preparing to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, having concluded their 13-year bloody war against Taliban insurgents.
The U.S. will keep an additional 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan next year, bringing the number of its residual troops to 10,800.
Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah has warned western troops of leaving Afghanistan prematurely.
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