(26 Mar 2009) SHOTLIST
1. Armed police men standing outside Ghazni hospital
2. Damaged police car
3. Broken car window
4. Pool of blood inside police car
5. Body of dead Taliban militant in back of police pick-up
6. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Colonel Abdul Ghafoor Qarabagh, District Police Chief:
"The enemy ambushed our personnel and the fighting started afterwards. As a result, six of our personnel were wounded and our personnel killed four enemy fighters."
7. Various interior shots of wounded policemen in hospital ward
STORYLINE:
Taliban militants attacked a police convoy in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province on Thursday, wounding at least six policemen, according to regional police spokesman Iqbal Gul Sapan.
Four militants were killed in the clash in Nani village near the provincial capital, he said.
The Interior Ministry said the police were transporting a militant prisoner when they were attacked.
Two civilians were also wounded in the attack, the ministry said in a statement.
Police often have fewer weapons and less training than Afghan and international troops, leaving them vulnerable to militant attacks.
Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said on Saturday that the new US strategy for the war in Afghanistan would be to focus on improved recruitment and training of the country's national police force.
Washington has pushed to significantly increase the number of Afghan police and improve their training as a key part of a revised US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that President Barack Obama is expected to unveil fully on Friday.
It is aimed at countering Taliban militants, who have made a comeback following their initial defeat by US-led forces in 2001.
Obama has already pledged to send 17-thousand additional troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and could send even more as part of the administration's new strategy.
Many of the troops will be sent to the south, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.
Better training also would be aimed at rooting out widespread police corruption, which has turned many Afghan citizens against the force.
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