Taliban rebels fleeing a major battle that left 25 dead in insurgency-hit southern Afghanistan killed a district chief and two policemen, officials said. Elsewhere, two people were killed and three wounded in a bomb blast in a bazaar in the southern city of Kandahar, while a Taliban commander was killed in a clash late Friday with police on the border with Pakistan, police said.Taliban militants retreating from the battle with police in southern Helmand provinceÂ’s Sangin district attacked the district headquarters in nearby Musa Qala late Friday, provincial deputy governor Amir Mohammad Akhundzada said. They killed district chief Abdul Qodus and one of his police guards, he said. They also killed a policeman as they stormed through adjoining Nawzad district.
The fierce battle in Sangin on Friday left around 20 Taliban fighters and five policemen dead, Akhundzada said. The interior ministry confirmed the fighting and death tolls, but could not say if fighters retreating from Sangin were responsible. The Musa Qala battle had lasted four hours, Spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.
In other violence, a remotely detonated roadside bomb killed two people and wounded three others Saturday in a bazaar in the southern capital of Kandahar.