Abducted Afghan soldiers killed

KABUL, Afghanistan - The bullet-riddled bodies of five government soldiers were found in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, a day after they were abducted by suspected Taliban, an Afghan official said.

Troops sent to search for the five Afghan National Army soldiers found their bodies in the Sur Ghogan area of Zabul province, about 240 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, Zabul Gov. Khial Mohammed said.

"We found the bodies and the Taliban took their vehicle," Mohammed said. "They were all shot in the stomach and chest."

Officials say the troops were kidnapped on Monday when suspected Taliban stopped their vehicle between Shahjoy and the provincial capital Qalat, on the main road from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.

A purported spokesman for the Taliban, Abdul Hakim Latifi, said on Monday that it had taken the men, but also said they were safe and that conditions for their release would be discussed later.

Taliban-led militants have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks, killing dozens of Afghan soldiers and civilians, and bringing the death toll in violence across the country to more than 300 this year.

Authorities appear to have little control in Zabul, where officials said four Afghan soldiers and two civilians were killed by mines and dozens of Taliban fighters attacked a government office in a remote district on Sunday.

Poor security threatens to upset plans for the country's first post-Taliban elections slated for September, despite the presence of some 15,000 mainly U.S. troops pursuing insurgents and 6,000 NATO-led peacekeepers.

GUNFIGHT KILLS CIVILIAN: A predawn gunfight between U.S. special operations troops and police that resulted from an apparent mixup killed a civilian at a school, leaving classrooms damaged and spattered with blood, officials said Tuesday.

Police initially said three officers were killed in a battle with U.S. troops late Saturday near Gardez, 60 miles south of the capital, Kabul, in Paktia province.

On Tuesday, the police chief, Gen. Haygul Salemankhel, said that the fourth victim was a civilian worker in a foreign-funded school where the police unit had set up a security post in a classroom.

The U.S. military, which called in air support, said it killed four gunmen who attacked a special operations convoy after it passed a checkpoint.

Abdul Matin, a consultant for the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan who visited the school the next day, cited an unidentified teacher from the school as saying the trouble began shortly before midnight, when two cars passed the police post without stopping.

Police guards shot at the vehicle, whose passengers - apparently American soldiers - returned fire, sparking a running battle, according to Matin, citing several witnesses.

Two Afghan police also were wounded, and several more were detained by American troops.

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