AFGHANISTAN - July 18 - 6 Afghan Police Officers Killed In Ambush.

Six Afghan police officers are killed when their convoy is ambushed with machine-gun fire and rockets on a dangerous section of the nation's main highway. "It happened at a place called Azatak, between two main highway posts", said the official, General Yaqoob Khan, the police chief of Zabul Province. "There were two police vehicles. One was hit by a rocket, which set it on fire. Six were killed and five more injured. There was a firefight. But by the time other troops arrived at the scene, the enemy had escaped". The enemy was presumably the Taliban, which has frequently targeted vehicles on the busy road that connects three troubled provinces between Kandahar and Kabul. The ambush was only one of several attacks on a violent day. Two suicide attackers outfitted in military uniforms killed four people at the main police station in Khost, said that province's governor, Arsallah Jamal". The first man started shooting his Kalashnikov at the gate inside the police station and a half minute later the other man blew himself up", the governor said. "The one who blew himself up is in pieces. But the first man is still lying there. He also was wearing a vest with explosives and we must defuse it before removing his body". Among the four dead was a civilian, he added. Six other people were wounded. In Kabul, a suicide bomber targeted Turkish forces but the bomber only managed to kill himself and wound one civilian, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The NATO mission in Afghanistan is being undermined by its members' failure to provide adequate troops and by strategic mistakes, a British parliamentary committee said, The AP reported from London. Echoing concerns expressed by senior British military figures in recent weeks, the legislators warned that the entire Afghan campaign was at risk if leading NATO countries continued to refuse to deploy additional personnel. Lawmakers also criticized the pace of work to combat the opium trade in Afghanistan, and they said NATO was failing to communicate its successes to ordinary Afghans while giving the propaganda initiative to the Taliban. "The challenges facing U.K. forces in Afghanistan remain huge", said James Arbuthnot, head of the parliamentary defense select committee. "The security situation in the south of the country is fragile to say the least, and the cultivation of poppy is worse than ever". Defense Secretary Des Browne welcomed the report's findings. "I agree with the committee's assessment that NATO nations should do more to meet the shortfalls in requirements", Browne said. "The U.K. continues to lobby other nations to provide more in terms of military and nonmilitary resources".