By DPA
Kabul : The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan launched a major military operation in the southern province of Helmand Wednesday, while a suicide bombing on a police convoy in Helmand wounded eight officers.
An ISAF spokesman told reporters in Kabul the operation conducted jointly by Afghan and NATO troops will focus on particular areas in Helmand to restore the government’s authority there.
One of the areas to be focussed on during the operation is the Upper Greshk Valley, which has for a long time been the scene of intense clashes between British troops and Taliban fighters.
The operation started Wednesday morning with some 2,500 Afghan and international soldiers involved.
ISAF spokesman Major Charles Anthony told reporters: “It is an operation to clear out Taliban insurgents in that particular area and help to restore governance to that area.”
Also on Wednesday, a suicide bomber who had explosives attached to his body blew up a couple of police vehicles when he targeted a convoy that was on patrol in the town of Garmsir in Helmand province, police chief Muhamamd Hussain Andiwal and other officials said.
The police chief said the wounded were evacuated to a local hospital and three of them were in serious condition, correcting an earlier police report that three officers had died in the bombing.
No civilians were hurt in the attack, Andiwal said.
Helmand is the most restive province of Afghanistan and has been the scene of two suicide attacks on police this week. On Monday, three officers were among seven killed in a bombing at a police headquarters in the Nadali district.
In another attack in Helmand, unknown gunmen shot dead a well-known tribal elder in the Greshk district Tuesday night.
Haji Mirajan was gunned down on his way from a mosque to his home, Andiwal said.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.
In the south-eastern province of Ghazni, a senior police officer was shot dead, also by unidentified assailants, late Tuesday on the outskirts of the provincial capital, also called Ghazni.
Raees Khan, chief of security for Governor House in Ghazni, was gunned down while visiting a new town being built for returning refugees, officials said.
Ghazni’s deputy police chief, Muhammad Zaman, said that as soon as Raees Khan got out of his jeep, gunmen opened fire at him, killing him on the spot and injuring one of his bodyguards.
“He was shot with a pistol, and the attackers immediately escaped the scene,” Zaman said, adding that the gunmen also took Raees’ jeep as a get-away car.
Ghazni is one of the most insecure provinces in southern Afghanistan, and attacks on government targets and foreign forces have increased in recent months.
Meanwhile, the Taliban and US-led coalition forces reported a Taliban ambush late Tuesday in the neighbouring province of Paktia, but disagreed on casualty figures.
The Taliban said several US soldiers were killed but a local spokesman working with the coalition said two of its soldiers were wounded in the attack.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the Islamic rebels ambushed a US convoy in the Garda Sirai district, killing several soldiers and destroying their vehicles.
But Saifullah Khan, a press officer at the coalition’s Salerno base, said two coalition soldiers were wounded and their vehicles damaged when a roadside bomb detonated and was followed by small-arms fire.