Taliban insurgents in captured military Humvee vehicles have launched suicide attacks in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, killing several members of the security forces in the district centre of Sangin, a senior official says.
The incident came amid bitter fighting in Helmand, a traditional Taliban heartland where insurgents have overrun many areas, leaving government forces in some district centres including Sangin and Marjah barely clinging on.
Provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said that after heavy fighting on Friday during which the Taliban lost around 40 fighters, suicide bombers in two captured Afghan army Humvees targeted the police and governor's headquarters.
"The first Humvee was ordered by the police to stop but when he ignored warnings, the police fired a rocket-propelled grenade," Sarjang said.
The second bomber detonated his vehicle near a checkpoint guarding the two headquarters. Four policemen were killed and seven wounded, he said, while an army spokesman said one soldier was killed and another was wounded.
In Kabul, the outgoing commander of international troops in Afghanistan General John Campbell confirmed the incident but said no American troops were involved.
The Taliban have captured large amounts of weapons and equipment from Afghan government forces, including Humvees and other vehicles, as the insurgency has spread over the past year.
Campbell recently ordered around 500 special forces personnel into Helmand to help bolster struggling Afghan security forces but their role is to act as trainers and advisers and only to get involved in combat if they come under attack.
Last month in Helmand, an American special forces soldier was killed during a firefight near the district centre of Marjah while he was on an operation with Afghan commandos.
US and British soldiers and marines suffered hundreds of casualties in Helmand where they fought for years against the Taliban for control of the province, one of the world's biggest opium-producing areas.
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