Taliban ambush kills 10 Afghan security employees

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents ambushed and killed 10 Afghan employees of a private security company in the south of the country on Monday, the Interior Ministry said.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent months after the traditional winter lull, following last year's worst violence since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001.

Three other staff of the company were wounded in the ambush, which happened before dawn on a highway in the southern province of Zabul, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The insurgents fled after the ambush, it added.

A provincial official said the victims worked for a U.S. private security company.

A Taliban spokesman said rebels fighting the Afghan government and foreign forces were behind the ambush.

A British Royal Marine was killed in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

Taliban guerrillas also overran a district in the northwestern province of Badghis, killing at least three police, a provincial official said.

Three policemen were also killed in a clash with militants in the town Ghazni to the southwest of Kabul, witnesses said.

And late the previous night, Taliban insurgents stormed a police post in the southwestern province of Nimroz, killing five police and abducting four others, a provincial official said.

More than 6,500 people have been killed in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since Taliban's removal from power in 2001.