Taliban posing as Afghan police killed

CNN:

Twenty-four Taliban fighters were killed during a seven-hour battle with Afghan and coalition forces at nightfall Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition command said Thursday.

Two coalition soldiers received minor injuries during the fighting and were evacuated to a nearby medical facility for treatment.

According to the coalition, the battle began when four Taliban members fired rounds at troops patrolling the northeast corner of Helmand province's Sangin district.

"After maneuvering to gain contact with the enemy force, U.S. Special Forces requested coalition air support to engage the Taliban fighters as they were attempting to establish ambush positions," the coalition said.

No civilian casualties occurred, the coalition said.

The following day, the U.S.-led coalition launchedair strikerike on a munitions compound in the northeastern section of the Sangin district after Taliban insurgents fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at Afghan and coalition forces conducting a security patrol.

A command coalition statement said two Taliban fighters were found dead at the scene after the strike.

There were no reports of any Afghan civilian injuries, the coalition said.

In Afghanistan's western Herat province, three Taliban insurgents were killed and three more were wounded by Afghan and coalition forces during an attempted ambush on their patrol Wednesday.

The coalition command in Afghanistan said the patrol was fired upon by Taliban insurgents donning Afghan national police uniforms at a makeshift checkpoint in the Shindand district.

...

In the past two days Afghan and coalition forces have confiscated more than 100 fake police uniforms and more than a dozen forged identification documents in Herat province, which is located near the Iranian border, according to the coalition command.

In the last two weeks "there have been multiple reports of Taliban fighters impersonating ANP (Afghanistan National Police) officers and establishing illegal check points to kidnap and terrorize local Afghan civilians," the statement said.

...

The enemy has gone from camouflaging himself as a civilian to camouflaging himself as an Afghan policeman. This is the act of someone with no respect for the rules of war. War crimes have become a way of life for the Taliban who have pretensions of superior morality while acting with disdain for moral conduct. The story also confirms that the Taliban are still the most inept fighters in the world when it comes to ambushes. In most cases they are the ones who seem to be caught in a trap of their own making.