S Afghanistan tense after Taliban strikes

Taliban militants killed a district intelligence chief in a drive-by shooting in southern Afghanistan, a police official said Tuesday.

Zulmai Khan was driving home from his office in the Ghazni provincial district of Waghuz on Monday when two men on motorcycles shot him to death, provincial police chief Thafir Khan said.

"According to our information, the Taliban carried out this attack," the provincial police chief told The Associated Press.

Taliban militants have been stepping up attacks against Afghan officials and US-led coalition forces in a bid to derail American-led reconstruction efforts in this Central Asian nation.

Fifteen militants were killed when Afghan security forces backed by the US-led coalition attacked their hideout in the southern province of Uruzgan on Sunday, General Rahmatullah Raufi said.

The dead included a man "most likely" to be a brother-in-law of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, Raufi said, speaking on Monday.

Twelve other Taliban were killed the same day in neighbouring Kandahar province when coalition warplanes bombed a building in which militants were taking refuge, Raufi said.

Ten Taliban were also believed to have been killed in a separate battle Sunday in Helmand province's Sangin district, Raufi said.

"We believe that 10 Taliban might have been killed but their bodies were not seen," he said. Taliban sometimes take the bodies of their fallen comrades with them after battle.

Two Afghan civilians were also killed and nine others including two children were wounded in a bomb attack Monday in southeastern Paktia province in an attack blamed on Taliban insurgents.