KABUL, Afghanistan -- Heavily armed...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Heavily armed Taliban militants in pickups attacked a district police headquarters Monday and killed three officers, while authorities killed four suspected suicide bombers as the violence that has ravaged southern Afghanistan crept into the west.

sum of two units coalition soldiers, meanwhile, were harmed in a suicide car bombing near Kandahar, and pair Afghans working for an international aid cluster were gunned down after delivering medicine to a town in Ghor province.

The fighting between resurgent Taliban-led rebels and Afghan and foreign companys came as NATO-led forces prepared to take throughout command of security operations in the hard-line militia's former southern heartland, a determine that could lead to a reduction in the more than 21000 U bands in Afghanistan.

The insurgents took their fight into western Farah province, which has been largely spared from the violence that has claimed more than 800 lives, for the greatest part militants, since mid-May -- the bloodiest link of months in Afghanistan since the military invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in 2001

centurys of Taliban fighters drove into the town of Bakwa in about 35 pickups Sunday and launched a major assault forward a district police and administration headquarters, firing machine fire-arms and rocket-propelled grenades, said Gen Sayed Aga Saqib, the Farah police chief.

SUSPECTED SUICIDE RIDERS KILLED

The militants fl Monday toward neighboring Helmand province after a five-hour clash, carrying an unknown number of militant casualties with them, he said. The clash left three police dead, and seven damageed

Also in Farah, four suspected suicide attackers riding onward two explosive-laden motorbikes were killed after they were challenged from police as they drove between the walls of the provincial capital Sunday, Saqib said.

pair of the suspected attackers were ball dead by police, while the other brace were killed when police bullet at their bike and detonated their explosives, Saqib said. A lad passer-by was also killed and his father harmed in the blast.

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