A bomb planted by Taliban fighters struck a police patrol on a highway in Afghanistan on Friday, killing two policemen, while anti-government insurgents torched another girls' school, officials said.
Two other policemen were critically wounded in the bomb blast on the Nimroz to Helmand highway in the country's insurgency-hit southwest, provincial police chief Haji Khan Mohammad Khan told the agency.
"Their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb that was remotely controlled," Khan said.
A purported Taliban spokesman said the movement's fighters had carried out the attack in Helmand province, but claimed seven policemen had been killed and the vehicle destroyed.
The spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, often calls journalists from an undisclosed location to claim attacks but his information is sometimes exaggerated or inaccurate.
The police chief blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan", a term Afghan officials use to refer to remnants of the Taliban regime forced from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
Taliban fighters and their Islamist allies are waging an anti-government insurgency that has become increasingly violent with more than 1,700 people -- most of them rebels -- killed over the past year.
Two Afghan soldiers were killed late on Tuesday when they came under attack from rebels in southeastern Paktika province, while two US soldiers were wounded in a bomb blast in eastern Kunar on Wednesday.
{{/usCountry}}Two Afghan soldiers were killed late on Tuesday when they came under attack from rebels in southeastern Paktika province, while two US soldiers were wounded in a bomb blast in eastern Kunar on Wednesday.
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