Taliban bomb kills eight Afghan police: officials

PULI ALAM: A Taliban bomb killed eight Afghan police Thursday in Logar province outside the capital Kabul, officials said, four days after the insurgents started their annual "spring offensive".

The members of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) force were on a joint patrol with NATO-led coalition forces near Puli Alam town when the blast was detonated.

"One of the police vehicles hit an IED (improvised explosive device) in which eight local police were killed and their pick-up truck was totally destroyed," Rais Khan Sadeq, Logar provincial deputy police chief, told.

Din Mohammad Darvish, the provincial spokesman, confirmed the incident and the death toll. "Eight local police are killed in a Taliban bomb," he said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman told the insurgent group was responsible for the attack. "A big number of police are dead and a big number of them are wounded," he said, without giving details.

Founded in 2010, the ALP is a controversial unit tasked with community-level policing to suppress violence in some of the country's most dangerous areas.

It was designed as a homegrown force of locals ready to take on Taliban hardliners in places where the national police and army were scarce, but is often criticised as indisciplined and poorly-trained.

The Taliban vowed their annual spring offensive would target international airbases and diplomatic buildings with multiple suicide bombings, as well as featuring "insider attacks" by Afghan soldiers and "special military tactics".