Taliban ambush in northern Afghanistan kills 22 police: officials

23 Taliban fighters were also killed

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Taliban militants killed 22 police officers and wounded eight after ambushing a police convoy in northern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said.

The early morning attack in Sari Pul province highlights Afghanistan's fragile security situation, with local forces facing a persistent Taliban insurgency as NATO winds down its military presence.

The police were attacked as they travelled to reinforce colleagues in another district in Sari Pul.

"They were ambushed as they were going from Laghman area to Alaf Safid. Twenty-two police were martyred, eight wounded and seven were taken captive," provincial governor Abdul Jabar Haqbin told AFP.

Around 10 police vehicles were torched, he said.

"They called for foreign forces' air support, but they arrived very late," he added.

He said the attack sparked a gunbattle that lasted several hours and left 23 Taliban fighters dead.

Kazim Kenhan a provincial police spokesperson, confirmed the incident.

The Taliban were not immediately available to comment, but the ambush is typical of attacks they have launched on Afghan security forces.

Also on Monday morning, a Taliban suicide car bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle against a NATO military convoy on the eastern edge of the Afghan capital Kabul killing an Afghan civilian and wounding three more.

The last attack on NATO forces in Kabul was on September 16, also when a bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a NATO convoy, triggering a massive blast that killed two Americans and one Polish soldier, and wounded a dozen civilians.

Kabul was also rocked two weeks ago by a series of suicide attacks staged during the inauguration of new president Ashraf Ghani. More than a dozen people were killed in several attacks on Afghan security forces.

The attacks comes at a testing time for Afghan security forces as NATO combat troops will complete their withdrawal by the end of this year, leaving Afghan troops and police to fight the insurgents on their own.

NATO's follow-up mission, which will take over on January 1, will be made up of 9,800 US troops and about 3,000 soldiers from Germany, Italy and other member nations that will focus mainly on training Afghan forces and counter-terrorism operations.