Hundreds of Taliban assault police post

A car bomb seriously wounded two US-led coalition soldiers near Kandahar, and in another incident, four suspected suicide attackers riding two motorcycles died in a confrontation with Afghan police. In the west, gunmen killed two Afghans working for international aid agency World Vision who had been delivering medicine.

Two coalition soldiers were badly wounded in the latest of a wave of Taliban-linked suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan yesterday, while 11 people died in other violence.

The soldiers were travelling in a convoy of US-led coalition and Afghan army vehicles outside Kandahar when a suicide attacker detonated a van filled with explosives, sending his body parts across the blast site, the coalition said.

It was the latest in a bloody wave of violence between resurgent Taliban-led rebels and Afghan and foreign troops, and comes as Nato-led forces prepare to take over command of security operations in the hard-line militia's former southern heartland.

The heaviest fighting took place in Bakwa, a town in southwestern Farah province, which has been spared from the worst of the recent violence that has claimed more than 800 lives, mostly militants, since mid-May.