By Nesar Azadzoi and Rod Nordland
GHAZNI, Afghanistan — At least nine police officers, including a local police chief, were killed in a Taliban attack in the southeastern provincial capital of Ghazni on Friday, according to Afghan officials.
It was one of the worst attacks in Ghazni since the Taliban tried to take the city in August, an assault that Afghan forces beat back with the help of American Special Operations troops and heavy airstrikes.
In the attack on Friday, which began before dawn and lasted three hours, the insurgents overran two security outposts in Ghazni’s third police district, killing the district chief and eight other police officers, according to Mohammed Arif Noori, the spokesman for the governor of Ghazni Province.
Mr. Noori said that a police officer was missing, and that officials suspected he was a Taliban infiltrator and had facilitated the attack.
A member of the Ghazni provincial council, Hassan Riza Yusufi, gave a higher toll, saying 15 police officers had been killed and six others wounded. Mr. Yusufi identified the dead chief as Mujiburrahman Andarabi, whose police district was one of three in Ghazni.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, sent a message to a group of journalists claiming responsibility for the attack on the insurgents’ behalf. He said the Taliban had killed six police officers and captured a seventh, then killed 10 Afghan soldiers who had been sent to rescue the police. His claims could not be independently confirmed.
Mr. Noori said the Taliban had also sustained heavy casualties, but he gave no specifics.
In the week that ended on Thursday, at least 98 members of the pro-government forces in Afghanistan were killed. That included four Afghan Special Forces soldiers and two Americans with a Special Forces unit, all killed in the same operation in Kunduz Province in the north.
In all, four American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year. Hundreds of members of the Afghan security forces have been killed, in most cases when their bases were overrun by insurgents.
Mohammad Musa Akhlaqi, a member of Parliament from Ghazni Province, said that there had been two consecutive nights of Taliban attacks in the city and that officials had asked the Afghan defense minister for extra help.
“He assured us they were paying attention to the situation in the city, but now this,” Mr. Akhlaqi said.
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