Insurgents kill 26 police, soldiers in southern Afghanistan

Dozens of insurgents attacked several checkpoints in
southern Afghanistan, killing 26 security forces' personnel in a
day-long battle, an official said Tuesday, according to dpa.
"The attack took place in Nawzad district on Monday, in which 19
policemen and seven soldiers were killed," said a police official
from the southern province of Helmand on condition of anonymity.
In a separate incident, at least one civilian has been killed and
three policemen injured in an ongoing stand-off between two suspected
suicide attackers and police in the southern province of Kandahar,
the provincial governor's spokesman Samim Khepilwak said Tuesday.