(Lead)
DPA
Kabul, April 14 (DPA) Two NATO soldiers and 11 Afghan policemen were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan, officials said Monday. Two other NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers were wounded in an explosion in the southern region, ISAF said in a statement.

The wounded soldiers were transported to an ISAF hospital for treatment, the statement said, but did not disclose the nationalities of the soldiers, nor did it say where exactly in the southern region the attack took place.

The statement also did not specify when the attack took place, saying the soldiers died Sunday.

The majority of the 47,000 multinational ISAF troops in the southern region are British, Canadian, Dutch or US soldiers.

Meanwhile, an attack against a police checkpoint took place in Arghandab district of southern Kandahar province in the early hours of Monday when the policemen were asleep, Amanullah Khan a police official in the province said.

He said the initial investigation showed that a policeman “might have cooperated with Taliban” militants in the attack.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack and said the militant group’s fighters killed 15 policemen.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on Afghan police. Eight police officers were killed in Kandahar and the neighbouring province of Helmand in Taliban attacks over the weekend.

Kandahar, which is on the border with Pakistan, is a stronghold of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s former Islamic fundamentalist rulers.

The poorly trained and equipped Afghan police sustained heavy casualties in Taliban-led attacks mainly in the southern region of the country, with more than 900 policemen killed in 2007.

The total death toll last year reached more then 8,000 people, mostly insurgents.

Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces said that their forces arrested an insurgent commander suspected of roadside attacks in Khost province.

The commander, who belongs to Haqqani network, an associate group of Taliban militants, was arrested in Gurbuz district of the Khost province Saturday, the US military said in a statement.

The combined forces also detained three other individuals with suspected ties to the targeted militant, it said.

Afghan government forces searched a mosque on the compound and discovered an ammunition vest and several grenades, it added.
DPA