Taliban ambush in Afghan north, bombs in capital and elsewhere kill 25

Taliban insurgents ambushed a convoy of Afghan security forces in a mountainous northern area on Monday, killing 22 soldiers and police, an official said, as bombs in Kabul and another area killed three. The violence comes as the Taliban and their militant allies step up attacks ahead of the withdrawal of most foreign troops at the end of the year, seeking to weaken the new Afghan government that will take over most of the fight. The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001, attacked from the mountains as the convoy was travelling through Laghman Valley in Sar-e-Pul province, Gov. Abdul Jabar Haqbeen said.

Twelve army and police vehicles are totally destroyed.

Abdul Jabar Haqbeen, governor of Sar-e-Pul province

Eight security forces were wounded and seven were taken captive. A suicide car bomber rammed a NATO military convoy along a major road out of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, early on Monday, killing one Afghan civilian, authorities said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Jalalabad Road, a main thoroughfare with a U.S. military base and a housing compound for U.N. and other international contractors and aid workers. At least three foreigners were wounded in the blast targeting their armoured vehicles, but their identities were not known, police said.

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