Over 170 Taliban, Islamic militants surrender in Afghanistan

KABUL: More than 170 Taliban and other Islamist fighters surrendered as part of a government amnesty scheme, vowing to lay down arms and work to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan, officials said.

The men travelled from various provinces from across Afghanistan to Kabul for a ceremony at which their surrender was announced by the head of the government's reconciliation commission, Sebghattullah Mujaddadi.

They included members of the extremist Hezb-e-Islami faction of wanted warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an anti-Soviet resistance commander who is part of a bloody anti-government insurgency.

"In the ceremony 172 brothers who were former Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami surrendered," commission spokesman Sayed Sharif Yousufi told AFP.

More than 1,000 Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami members have signed up to the amnesty scheme since it was launched less than a year ago, Yousufi said.

One of the former fighters, Qazi Joma Khan from the Hezb-e-Islami faction, said the men wanted to help rebuild Afghanistan.

"We vow to help ensure security and peace and take part in reconstruction of our country," he said.

"We promise not to stand against the government any more," said ex-Taliban, Mawlawi Abdul Rehman.

President Hamid Karzai has offered amnesty to members of the Taliban movement, which was in power from 1996 to 2001, and other Islamic militias "whose hands are not stained with innocent people's blood" from the past 25 years of war.

Among those who have taken up the offer are former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and the Taliban regime's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef.

Meanwhile Seven policemen were killed in new attacks in southern Afghanistan, officials said, as security forces searched for suspected Taliban insurgents after fierce battles that killed more than 40 people.

Six policemen were killed and five wounded late Saturday when their vehicle struck a landmine in insurgency-hit Kandahar province, a district police chief said.

"The mine was planted recently. It was a Taliban mine," said Mohammad Nabi, police chief of Khakraiz district where the men were killed.

Another policeman was killed in Helmand province late Saturday when a roadside bomb struck a vehicle in Kajaki district, police said.

The district adjoins Sangin, the scene of the fiercest of three battles late Friday. Helmand governor Mohammad Daud told AFP 33 suspected Taliban were killed in the clashes.

Police said seven policemen and a district governor were also killed in Friday's fighting, which also saw battles in Helmand's Musa Qala and Nawzad districts.

Daud said between 150 and 200 Taliban had gathered in Sangin when police arrived on a counter-narcotic operation, sparking off the fighting.

Planes from the US-led coalition bombed Sangin in support of the Afghan security forces. - Kabul,Monday (AFP)