Gunbattle leaves 20 militants, 4 police dead in northwestern Afghanistan

A gunbattle between police and insurgents left four officers and 20 suspected militants dead as violence from Afghanistan's bloodiest year since the fall of the Taliban spread to the normally quiet northwest, an official said Thursday.

The militants attacked police in the Murghab district of Badghis province, which borders Iran and Turkmenistan, and a three-hour clash ensued, said provincial Gov. Mohammad Ashraf Nasiri. He said the bodies of 10 militants were left behind on the battlefield but that a total of 20 were killed and nine wounded. Four police also were killed, he said.

Militant attacks are usually concentrated in Afghanistan's southern and eastern provinces and are less common in the north, though that region has seen a handful of suicide bombings this year.

The Ministry of Defense said it was "strongly supporting" the U.N.'s International Day of Peace on Friday, though it did not commit itself to a cease-fire.

The hard-line Taliban also did not plan to observe a cease-fire, a spokesman said, noting NATO's International Security Assistance Force launched a new operation in Helmand province Wednesday, two days before Peace Day.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan is strongly promoting Peace Day in Afghanistan, a country that's seen almost 30 years of war. The U.N. is carrying out polio vaccinations in the country's dangerous south as part of Peace Day, and Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the medical workers would not be attacked.

In other violence, militants attacked a private security company Wednesday in Shah Joy district of Zabul province, killing one security guard, the Defense Ministry said Thursday. The ensuing gunbattle left one suspected insurgent dead, it said.

In Kandahar province, an Afghan was killed and several others were wounded in a road accident Wednesday involving a NATO patrol vehicle and a civilian car, NATO's ISAF said Thursday.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated his explosives near Afghan army soldiers in Ghazni province Thursday, wounding two soldiers, said Mohammad Zaman, deputy provincial police chief. Only the bomber was killed.

This year has been the most violent in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban for hosting Osama bin Laden. More than 4,300 people _ mostly militants _ have died in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count.