Afghan clash kills 11 militants: police

Nearly 20 hours of fighting sparked by a Taliban attack on a NATO supply convoy in western Afghanistan left 11 militants and one policeman dead, police said on Friday.

The clash that started on Thursday and ended early Friday was the latest in a wave of violence that has cast doubt on whether it will be possible to conduct August 20 presidential elections in all parts of the troubled country.

Insurgents had first attacked the convoy, protected by private security guards from US-based company USPI, with a bomb blast that wounded three guards, the provincial police chief told AFP.

They then ambushed the convoy, said the officer, Asmatullah Alizai.

"We sent police forces to support the USPI guards and they surrounded the Taliban," he said.

"Eleven Taliban and one policeman were killed. Five Taliban and two policemen were wounded in the fighting, which started Thursday afternoon and ended this morning," he said.

Only four Taliban bodies remained at the scene of the fight, Alizai said, adding the surviving militants had managed to take the rest of the dead away with them.

Insurgent attacks have stepped up across Afghanistan in recent years, with the violence peaking just weeks ahead of the August presidential and provincial council elections -- a milestone on the rocky road to democracy.

There are roughly 90,000 international troops under NATO and US-led coalition command in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and other radical groups alongside Afghan forces.