Taliban attacked a police patrol in southern Afghanistan overnight, with an intelligence official and a militant killed and two police wounded in the ensuing gunfight, police said on Saturday. The patrol was attacked in Ghazni province late on Friday, provincial police chief Tafsir Khan said. “One intelligence official and two police were wounded in the fire fight,” Khan said. “One Taliban was also killed and four were wounded.” Police arrested 15 suspects in a subsequent sweep of the area. A Canadian solider with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led peacekeepers died on Saturday and three others were wounded in a traffic accident in southern Afghanistan, a statement said. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers were travelling in an armoured jeep as part of a convoy when the accident took place. The cause is not known but “enemy action has been ruled out”, it said.
“One ISAF soldier is dead and three others are wounded following a vehicle accident at noon today in Kandahar province,” according to the NATO statement said. The wounded soliders were evacuated by helicopter to the multinational forces hospital at Kandahar Airfield after receiving first aid by a ISAF soldier at the site. NATO took control of southern Afghanistan, which is hard-hit by an ongoing insurgency waged by remnants of the Taliban regime, this week from their American predecessors. The coalition is maintaining a counter-terrorism force alongside NATO in the restive area.