KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents killed 13 people, including 10 police, in a series of attacks across the country on Wednesday, officials said.
Afghanistan has seen a rising tide of violence following the traditional winter lull. Some Western leaders have warned this year Afghanistan risks sliding back into anarchy unless more is done to coordinate military, political and development efforts.
Five police officers were killed when Taliban fighters stormed their post in the eastern province of Kunar, near the border with Pakistan, Abdul Saboor Allahyar, a senior provincial police officer said.
"After the attack, a clash erupted in which 13 Taliban were also killed," Esmatullah, a border force commander, told reporters.
Three more policemen lost their lives when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the northwestern province of Badghis, the provincial governor said.
In a separate incident, a suicide bomber attacked a police compound in the Girishk district of the southern province of Helmand, the district police chief said.
Police opened fire on the bomber, setting off his explosives belt as he tried to enter the compound, but two officers were killed in the blast, Girishk police chief Khan Mohammad Shuja told Reuters.
Another suicide bomber blew himself up in a bazaar close to the Pakistan border, killing three civilians and wounding at least 14 more, officials said.
The bomber blew himself up after being identified and chased by Afghan security forces in the southern town of Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, Afghan and foreign military officials said.
A caller identifying himself as a Taliban member contacted Reuters reporters to claim responsibility for the attacks.
Ousted from power in 2001, the al Qaeda-backed Taliban have vowed to launch a wave of suicide bombs across Afghanistan this year to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and drive out foreign troops.
Nearly 12,000 Afghans, including more than 330 foreign troops, have been killed since 2006, the bloodiest period since 2001.
The increase in violence comes despite the presence of some 55,000 foreign troops under the command of NATO and the U.S. military and more than 100,000 Afghan security forces.
U.S.-led troops and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001 after it refused to surrender al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the September 11 attacks on America.
(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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