More failed attacks by Taliban

AP:

Taliban fighters simultaneously attacked two police checkpoints on a southern Afghan highway, and up to 14 militants were killed or wounded in the ensuing gunbattle, an official said Sunday.

In central Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan troops shot dead three insurgents.

The checkpoint attacks, which occurred Saturday, came a day after heavy fighting in the southern province of Kandahar killed 41 militants and six policemen, police said, in the biggest battle in a recent spate of Taliban-led violence threatening this war-battered nation's new democracy.

In neighboring Zabul province late Saturday, about 30 Taliban attacked police posts about a mile apart on the outskirts of Qalat district, 95 miles northeast of Kandahar city, Zabul police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhail said.

The police were deployed at the posts to guard the main highway linking the capital, Kabul, with Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold.

The fighting lasted for about 30 minutes, and 14 militants were killed or wounded, said Malakhail, who did not have an exact breakdown of the casualties. He said there were no police casualties.

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On Saturday, suspected Taliban attacked coalition and Afghan army troops with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades in central Uruzgan province, sparking a gunbattle that killed three attackers, the U.S. military said in a statement.

No Afghan or coalition forces were wounded, it said.

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