Taliban attack on security checkpoints kills eight members

KABUL, May 07 (Agencies): An Afghan official says the Taliban have targeted security checkpoints in northeastern Takhar province, killing eight members of the security forces.

Wafiullah Rahmani, head of the provincial council, says three soldiers and five policemen were killed in Monday night's attack in Khwaja Bahaudin district.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The insurgents stage near-daily attacks on Afghan forces, even as peace efforts have accelerated to find an end to Afghanistan's 17-year war.

Separately, Dadullah Qaneh, councilman in western Farah province, says coalition forces on Sunday carried out airstrikes against Taliban-run heroin labs, killing 15 laborers.

But Mohibullah Mohib, the provincial police chief's spokesman, says those killed in Bakwa district were all members of the Taliban.

The Taliban run most of Afghanistan's drug trade and control vast opium poppy fields.

Meanwhile, at least 13 Taliban militants were killed after Afghan national army conducted a special operation in northern province of Baghlan overnight in the latest raid against the insurgents, a military source said on Tuesday.

"The raid was launched by army's Special Operations Forces in Dand-e-Ghori, an area on outskirts of provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri. The security forces received hostile fire during the mission, and they returned fire, killing 13 militants," Abbas Twakuli, a press officer of army Corps 217 Pamir based in the region, told Xinhua.

The NATO-led coalition personnel were in an advisory capacity and they did not fire their weapons, he added.

There were no casualties on the security forces, the source added.

The province has long been the scene of clashes between Taliban militants and security forces.

On Sunday, 18 police officers were killed and about 60 police and civilians were injured after seven Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the provincial police station in Pul-e-Khumri, 160 km north of the country's capital, Kabul.

The Afghan security forces, backed by the NATO-led coalition troops, have increased ground and air offensives against militants within the past few months as spring and summer known as the fighting season is drawing near in the country.

The militant group has yet to respond to the report.