The police officers were killed when a roadside bomb, the type often used by Taliban Islamist militants, hit their vehicle on a dirt road, deputy provincial governor Shams-Ul Rahman Shams said. "We blame the attack on the armed opposition groups," he told AFP, referring to Taliban. "It was a remote-controlled bomb."

In Kandahar province, centre of the insurgency, NATO helicopters raided a militant hideout in Panjwayi district early Sunday, killing up to eight insurgents, said Sardar Mohammad Zazai, Kandahar provincial police chief.

The rebels are trying to regain power and drive out tens of thousands of foreign forces who are in Afghanistan to root them out.

In a separate incident, a foreign soldier was killed on Sunday fighting Taliban in southern Afghanistan, NATO said, bringing to 222 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AFP count.

AFP