FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, July 22

Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:54am EDT

July 22 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1145 GMT on Tuesday.

* denotes new or updated item.

* FARAH - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces backed by airpower have killed or wounded more than 30 Taliban insurgents in fighting in western Farah province, a senior police official said on Tuesday.

KABUL - A suicide bomber in Kabul wounded five civilians, two of them lightly, on Tuesday when police at a checkpoint challenged him, the Interior Ministry said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

ZABUL - Taliban guerrillas ambushed a convoy carrying supplies for a foreign security firm and killed four of its local guards on Monday in southern Zabul province, a provincial official said.

GHAZNI - In neighbouring Ghazni, Taliban fighters stormed a police post and killed four officers late on Monday, an official said. Insurgents killed four brothers who served as police in an attack on their house in Qarabagh district of Ghazni overnight, the interior ministry said. They abducted the father of the victims too, it added.

PAKTIKA - The spokesman for the governor of southeastern Paktika province was killed in his house by Taliban assailants late on Monday, an official from the area said. A Taliban spokesman confirmed the report.

DAI KUNDI - The former commander of a local armed group claimed responsibility for the abduction of two French aid workers who were seized from their house last week in the central province of Dai Kundi, Radio Liberty said on Tuesday.

The commander, Sedaqat, said he had kidnapped the pair because of differences with provincial officials who he said had sidelined him from power, it said. He said he wanted to solve the issue peacefully, but made no demand for freeing them, it added. (Compiled by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Paul Tait)

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