New York: An entire contingent of police
on duty in an Afghan town appeared to have switched sides to the Taliban, surrendering a police station after cutting a deal with the militants, and leaving the Afghan and US forces
stumped.
The Taliban capture of the station, however, did not
last long as the centre in Khogenyani, a town southwest of
Kabul, was recaptured by the government forces.
However, the police officers -- as many as 19 of them
-- vanished, as did their guns, trucks, uniforms and food, a
New York Times report said.
A spokesman for the Taliban said that they had cut a
deal with the Khogeyani`s police force and then burned the
station, The Times said.
"This was not an attack, but a plot," said Mohammed
Yasin, the chief of the Khogeyani police force.
"The Taliban and the police made a deal. We never
force people to join us," said a Taliban spokesman.
"The police joined us voluntarily and are happy to
work with us, and to start the holy war shoulder to shoulder
with their Taliban brothers".
Musa Khan Akbarzada, the provincial governor, said the
Afghan forces were looking for the missing officers but the
Taliban spokesman said that they were already out of reach.
"The Taliban exist in and around the district centres, and we have our own judges, courts, district governors and other officials," the Taliban spokesman said.
"We do our guerrilla attacks and then leave the
district centre. This is just a building".
Meanwhile, the bodies of two female Afghan aid workers
were found on a roadside in Helmand province on Sunday.
The women, Majabina and Nazaneen who ran a small
vocational training centre, were shot dead.
The centre helped women to sew, make clothes, cut hair
and prepare fruit preserves, NYT reported.
PTI
