Taliban kill 17 police in southern Afghanistan

At least 17 Afghan policemen were killed Saturday when dozens of Taliban militants stormed their outpost in the country's volatile south, the latest attack of an increasingly deadly summer fighting season.

The pre-dawn raid occurred in Helmand province as the Taliban intensify their countrywide summer offensive despite repeated government attempts to reopen peace negotiations.

"Dozens of armed Taliban attacked a police checkpoint in Musa Qala district of Helmand," provincial police chief Nabi Jan Mullahkhil told AFP.

"In the attack, 17 police forces were killed, and three others were wounded."

Omar Zwak, the spokesman for the Helmand provincial governor, confirmed the death toll from the raid that occurred just after midnight and lasted several hours.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they seized several weapons, ammunition and other military hardware from the checkpost.

"Our mujahedeen, armed with heavy and light weapons, attacked police checkpoint in Musa Qala district," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.

"In the attack, 25 police forces were killed and 13 others were wounded."

The Taliban, who were toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, are known to make exaggerated battlefield claims.

The insurgents launched a countrywide offensive in late April, stepping up attacks on government and foreign targets in what is expected to be the bloodiest fighting season in a decade.

Saturday's attack marks another grim setback for Afghan forces, facing their first fighting season without full NATO support.

NATO's combat mission formally ended in December but a small follow-up foreign force of about 12,500 mainly US troops has stayed on to train and support local security personnel.

- Growing casualties -

Afghan authorities have repeatedly tried to jumpstart talks with the Taliban in the hope of ending the 13-year conflict, but the militants have set tough conditions, including the withdrawal of all foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces, many of them poorly equipped, have increasingly borne the brunt of the fighting around Afghanistan.

In early May Taliban militants killed at least 13 policemen after storming security outposts in the remote mountainous province of Badakhshan.

The attack came just weeks after a similar Taliban raid on army checkpoints in the northeast province in which 18 soldiers were killed -- including some who were beheaded.

Earlier this year a US watchdog said in a report that Afghan security forces were suffering heavy casualties on the battlefield and large numbers of troops were resigning or deserting their units.

Between October 2013 and September 2014, more than 1,300 Afghan army soldiers were killed in action and 6,200 were wounded, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in its report.

Between September 2013 and September 2014, more than 40,000 personnel were dropped from Afghan National Army rolls, it added.

The surge in attacks has also taken a heavy toll on civilians, according to the UN mission in Afghanistan.

Almost 1,000 civilians were killed in the conflict during the first four months of this year, a sharp jump from the same period last year, it said.

President Ashraf Ghani's government has drawn criticism for failing to end growing insurgent attacks, which critics partly blame on political infighting and a lengthy delay in appointing a candidate for the crucial post of defence minister.

Ghani last month nominated Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a top official in the government body overseeing the country's peace process, for the job.

The post had been left vacant for months due to disagreements between Ghani and his chief executive and former presidential election rival, Abdullah Abdullah.