- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Five Afghan police shot dead seven
fellow officers as they slept, before defecting to join Taliban guerrillas
fighting in southern Afghanistan, a provincial official said on Monday.
-
- Sunday night's incident outside Qalat,
the provincial capital of southern province of Zabul, comes amid the bloodiest
period in an insurgency raging since U.S.-backed forces toppled the militants'
government in 2001.
-
- "The seven policemen were asleep
when the other five jumped, killed them, took their arms and joined the
Taliban," provincial spokesman, Gulab Shah Alikhail, told Reuters.
-
- He said provincial officials were hunting
the five policemen and had "intelligence" that they had joined
the Taliban.
-
- While there have been many cases of police
running away from the Taliban, hitherto there have been no reports of police
defecting to the guerrillas.
-
- More than 400 people, most of them militants,
dozens of Afghan security forces, and at least 17 civilians and four foreign
troops were killed in the fighting last month.
-
- Last week, the Taliban attacked a district
headquarters in neighboring Uruzgan province, killed more than 10 police,
captured up to 40 others, but released 20 of them after getting "commitments
that they would desert the government."
-
- A few days later, U.S.-led coalition
forces and Afghan troops recaptured the district.
-
- The Taliban have vowed to overthrow President
Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government and drive out foreign forces from
Afghanistan. The surge in the insurgency comes as NATO members have begun
deploying thousands of peacekeeping troops in southern provinces where
the Taliban are most active.
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