Afghan policemen found slain

KABUL, Afghanistan — Authorities in a troubled province south of the capital said Thursday that four Afghan police officers were killed, apparently while trying to escape Taliban custody, and that they may have been among a group of police who disappeared when their district was overrun by insurgents earlier this week.

A surviving police officer was being questioned, the officials said.

The Taliban had claimed Monday that a group of about 16 police in the Khogyani district of Ghazni province had defected to the insurgency and actively participated in torching government buildings and vehicles before voluntarily leaving with the Taliban fighters.

Provincial officials said the circumstances of the policemen’s disappearance remained unclear, but acknowledged that the officers had not put up any resistance when insurgents swept into the district before dawn Monday and occupied its center for several hours.

A provincial spokesman, Ismail Jihangar, said it was “probable” that the dead men were part of the missing contingent. “The five policemen were trying to escape the insurgents’ captivity, and four of them were killed,” he said.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said he had heard of the discovery of the bodies but did not know anything more.

Insurgents often stage successful strikes on isolated police posts. Western trainers who have worked with the Afghan police say it is difficult to convince them of the importance of basic procedures such as having someone stay awake on guard duty.

But defections to the Taliban side are by no means unknown among the police, whose training and literacy levels are generally lower than those of army recruits.

Security in Ghazni - which lies on the main road between the capital, Kabul, and the south’s main hub, Kandahar - has steadily deteriorated in recent months, with the Taliban present or in control of many areas.

In Kandahar province, insurgents assassinated an official described as a deputy education chief. Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said the official, Ustat Abdullah, was killed early Thursday, but did not provide details. Most such targeted killings are carried outby Taliban gunmen or suicide bombers.

The campaign of assassinations of government officials in Kandahar has continued despite what Western military officials describe as a highly successful drive to clear Taliban strongholds in districts surrounding the city.

The targeting of Afghan government workers has made it extremely difficult to recruit qualified personnel, although Western officials have described providing better governance and public services as a key follow-up to the military push in Kandahar.

Meanwhile, an Afghan rights group said Thursday that hundreds of homes have been destroyed and thousands of people displaced by the fighting in Kandahar province.

The group, the Afghan Rights Monitor, called for swift reconstruction efforts and warned that without them, there could be an angry antigovernment and anti-Western backlash.

Fighting also has been heavy in neighboring Helmand province. The NATO force said Thursday that “numerous” insurgents had been killed while Western and Afghan forces were trying to capture a man described as a senior Talibanleader in the strategic Kajaki district.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force says pinpoint raids over the past three months have killed or captured hundreds of midlevel Taliban commanders and thousands of lower-level fighters.

Also Thursday, the Western military reported the death of a NATO service member in the eastern part of the country, without disclosing the nationality of the soldier involved. Two other coalition servicemen died after an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, NATO said.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s top prosecutor has opened an investigation into the country’s electoral authorities, saying they have not clearly explained their reasoning for throwing out nearly a quarter of the votes cast in September’s parliamentary polls, an official said Thursday.

Afghans had hoped the elections would be credible after last year’s fraud-marred presidential vote, which soured relations between President Hamid Karzai and his Western allies.

Information for this article was contributed by Rahim Faiez of The Associated Press.