Kandahar, Nov 22 (DPA) Five Afghan border policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan Sunday, a police official said.
The explosion happened in Spin Boldak, a district in the volatile province of Kandahar bordering Pakistan, said General Abdul Raziq, the border police commander.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but said their fighters hit a police vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade in the district’s main market.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi said via telephone that the pre-dawn attack killed six policemen, including their commander Khodai Nazar Khan.

The Taliban emerged a military force in Spin Boldak in 1995 and within three years captured almost all of Afghanistan’s territory. The militant group ruled the country for five years before their government was toppled by US-led military invasion in late 2001.

Eight years after their ouster, Taliban militants are still active in southern and eastern regions, along the porous border with Pakistan, where the militants are believed to have safe havens.