Kabul, January 22: A police officer lost his life and nine others sustained injuries on Saturday after a roadside bomb hit a police van in Helmand province located 555 km south of Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, Xinhua news agency quoted a police official as saying.
“The gruesome incident happened in Wazirmanda village outside provincial Lashkar Gah at around 10:00 a.m. local time,” deputy to provincial police chief, Kamaludin Khan, stated.
He also spoke of ongoing cleanup operations to flush out Taliban militants, who are perceived to have found a safe haven in Helmand and the neighboring Kandahar and Zabul provinces.
Over the past nine years, Taliban militants have waged the bloodiest of their battles against the US-led forces in the country’s southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.
NATO and the United States have close to 150,000 troops in Afghanistan, with 30,000 deployed in Helmand province.
The remarks came at the end of the deadliest year in the war-wracked country for US and NATO troops, with the death toll reaching 711.
On Jan. 12, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said there was an increase in bloodshed in Afghanistan as foreign soldiers begin to fire up their offensive against the Taliban elements.
“As difficult as it may be to accept, we must prepare ourselves for more violence and more casualties in coming months,” said the senior US military commander.
“The violence will be worse in 2011 than it was in 2010 in many parts of Afghanistan,” Mullen concluded.
—Agencies