Three policemen were killed by a landmine planted by Taleban insurgents in a police post in the Afghan capital Wednesday, a police official said. The blast occurred as a group of officers were investigating the killing of three other policemen at the post in an overnight Taleban attack, he said. Several other police and senior city officer Ali Shah Paktiawal were wounded in the blast on the city's western outskirts, the official said. The Taleban said in a statement that the militant group was behind both incidents, adding that they were part of the militants' focus on launching attacks in Kabul. Earlier, a police officer said Paktiawal was the target of the blast. Paktiawal heads the criminal investigation department of Kabul police and has survived several attempts on his life. Separately, foreign forces killed three civilians and wounded 11 more in an air strike Tuesday in the Manogai district of eastern Kunar province, district chief Mohammad Rahman Daish told reporters. Foreign troops under NATO and the US military operate in the province and both have yet to comment on the report, the latest in a string of rising civilian casualties that has diminished support for foreign forces in Afghanistan. US-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taleban's rule in 2001. But the militants regrouped and have extended the size and scope of their attacks despite the rising number of foreign and Afghan forces, currently around 220,000.
