The killings prompted France to threaten an early pullout from the NATO-led war.

The claim of responsibility raises serious concerns about handing control of security over to the Afghan army and police, which NATO-led forces are currently in the process of doing before all foreign combat troops leave by the end of 2014.

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has recruited people in important positions," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, using another name the Islamist group call themselves.

"Some of them have already accomplished their missions."

The four French soldiers died on the spot, he said.

The killings in Kapisa province were the latest in a string of such attacks in which Afghan troops turn on their Western allies and mentors. While NATO has blamed Taliban infiltration in the past, it has also said stress, indiscipline and divided loyalties within the hastily trained ranks played a role.

Such attacks are especially damaging as the Afghan National Army tries to win public trust before foreign troops leave.

The Taliban claim coincided with a visit to Kabul by the U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman. He is expected to meet President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials.

Despite the presence of more than 100,000 foreign troops, violence across Afghanistan remains at its worst levels since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, according to the United Nations.

In April last year, an Afghan Air Force pilot opened fire at the military wing of Kabul's main airport, killing eight U.S. troops and an American contractor.

An Afghan border policeman shot dead six U.S. soldiers during a training mission in Nangarhar province in 2010.

U.S. and NATO officials usually describe such attacks as isolated incidents.

Afzal Aman, head of operations for the Afghan National Army, said he could not confirm if the Taliban had infiltrated the army in this instance. But he suggested that such recruitment could represent a bigger threat than previously thought.

"Usually in the past, whenever something like this happened, it came about after Afghan and foreign soldiers had an argument over something related to Afghan affairs," he told Reuters.

Friday's attack also comes weeks after an offer from the Taliban to open a political office in Qatar as a prelude to possible peace talks with the United States and other nations.

After the shooting -- which took the French death toll to 82 since the war began in 2001 -- President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered all French military operations on the ground to be suspended and Defense Minister Gerard Longuet jetted into Kabul Saturday.

A regional Taliban commander added that incidents such as a video showing U.S. Marines urinating on corpses were boosting support for the group among Afghans and threatened more attacks.

"Our missions have become easier because of incidents like the video," he said.</s>The commander, named only as Mirwais, was in charge of a checkpoint in the Bala Boluk district when he and his unit defected to the Taliban and handed over their equipment and weapons, including military vehicles.

"He was a police commander for a checkpoint in Shewan village. He joined the Taliban with a Humvee, a Ranger (SUV), radios and 20 guns," said Abdul Rahman Zwandai, a spokesman for the Farah governor.

The seven police were poisoned because they refused to join the rebellion, he said. All were taken to the Farah hospital and an investigation would be launched.

Farah, bordering Iran, is one of western Afghanistan's most insecure provinces, although the west is relatively secure compared to insurgent strongholds in the east and south.

The defection was the first time that police had joined the Taliban and taken so much equipment with them, Zwandai said, and will worry Western backers looking to hand security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

But national intelligence officials denied reports in some Afghan media that two members of the country's High Peace Council, which leads government efforts to reconcile with the Taliban, had also defected to the insurgency.

"I'm not sure anyone from the HPC would have joined the Taliban," said National Directorate of Security deputy spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiri.

Mohammad Hashim Grani, who heads the Peace Council in southeast Zabul province, said earlier this week that HPC members Mawlavi Mohammad Aziz and Mawlavi Mohammad Zeba were still backing the government, despite going missing amid Taliban claims they had defected.

"They are in villages to infiltrate the Taliban and meet more and more people," Grani said. "Very soon they will turn back."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani premier Raja Pervez Ashraf said this week during talks in Kabul that Peace Council head Salahuddin Rabbani would soon travel to Pakistan for talks on the stalled Afghan peace process.</s>WASHINGTON — When Afghan intelligence officials, assisted by international investigators, probed a terror attack last month that killed five Emirati diplomats in Kandahar, they traced the suspects to a conservative religious seminary in Pakistan.

“The attack was planned in Mawlawi Ahmad Madrassa in Chaman, Quetta,” said Sediq Seddiqi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior.

The investigation shed light on the increasing links of some madrassas — Islamic seminaries — in Pakistan with Afghan Taliban who are fighting the Afghan government and U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan.

Thirty thousand madrassas operate across Pakistan, most of them legal and adhering strictly to religious teaching. But thousands of them are not registered with the government and are teaching grounds and recruiting points for militants and Taliban, according to Pakistan and Afghan intelligence officials.

Much of the militant activity is centered in Balochistan, where 5,500 madrassas operate as boarding schools. Many of them are kept from government scrutiny and are breeding points for terror.

“There are many seminaries where Afghan Taliban are studying, and many are owned by the Afghan Taliban group,” Balochistan’s minister for home and tribal affairs, Sarfaraz Bugti, told VOA’s Deewa service.

Experts say the abundance of unregistered madrassas across the country has led to an increase in militancy in the Afghan-Pakistan region. The schools nurture militants’ ideology and provide foot soldiers for the Taliban, who have been engaged in a bloody insurgency with the U.S.-backed Afghan government for more than a decade.

“You can see madrassas in every street, and they are spreading extremism to every house, community and village of Pakistan,” Khadim Hussain, a Pakistani security analyst, told VOA.

According to Balochistan provincial government estimates, more than 5,000 Afghans are studying at madrassas in the province. The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah, reportedly operated a madrassa in Kuchlak, near the provincial capital, Quetta.

The Afghan Taliban’s influence over the unregulated madrassa network is most visible in the Pashto-speaking belt of Baluchistan, where Afghan militants can easily travel between Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials say.

“There are 191 madrassas in my district, 21 of them unregistered, and some 20 percent of the enrolled students are Afghans,” said Qaisar Khan Nasir, a provincial official in Qilla Abdullah district, which has a Pashtun majority population and borders Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.

Washington and Kabul accuse Pakistan of harboring armed opponents of the Afghan government, including the Taliban’s Quetta Council, which is composed of Taliban leadership and the Haqqani Network — a U.S.-designated terror organization.

Extremist groups who support militancy in Afghanistan and are U.S.-designated terrorist groups run countrywide networks of madrassas, according to American intelligence reports. Though banned in Pakistan, the groups operate under different names while supporting the Afghan Taliban.

Last year, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government was scathingly criticized for a $3 million grant it allocated to the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, a controversial Islamic seminary that some critics call the “University of Jihad.”

Headed by former senator Samiul Haq, the madrassa houses about 4,000 students and is widely known for links to, and has publicly expressed sympathies for, the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. That association has won the Islamic cleric the title of “Father of the Taliban.”

Both Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani — founders of Afghanistan’s Taliban and the lethal Haqqani Network, respectively — are believed to have studied in the Haqqania madrassa. Taliban leader Mullah Akthar Mansoor, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in May, also may have been a former student.

Pakistani officials say they are investigating funding connections of madrassas associated with the Taliban.

“The funding these madrassas receive usually originates from Arab and some other countries, and we’re aware of it,” Amin-ul-Hasnat Shah, Pakistan’s state minister for religious affairs, told VOA. “The government is monitoring the money trail and how this money is spent and utilized by the madrassas. We want to ensure that these funds are not used for any suspicious activity or to promote extremism through Islamic seminaries in Pakistan.”

The Pakistani government says a new national counterextremism policy is being formed, which includes reforming the madrassa system, according to Ihsan Ghani, chief of the National Counter Terrorism Authority. The government vows to register all unregistered madrassas.

“The government has pledged to reform these madrassas through registration, change of syllabus, and to keep an eye on any extremism-related activities or links in these madrassas,” Shah said.

Muhammad Mir, a madrassa principal and member of a madrassa committee in Baluchistan, said he hoped the government would keep its promise to clean up radical religious schools.

“We’re in touch with the government and have requested them to look into the matter on urgent basis,” he told VOA. “If there are extremist elements within any madrassas in Baluchistan, the government should take strict action against it.”

VOA’s Noor Zahid and Madeeha Anwar contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON: Sarfaraz Bugti, Balo­chis­tan’s minister for home and tribal affairs, said in an interview to the Voice of America radio that thousands of Afghan Taliban are still studying in religious seminaries across the province.

“There are many seminaries where Afghan Taliban are studying, and many are owned by the Afghan Taliban group,” said Bugti.

Pakistan has more than 30,000 madressahs, most of them legal but thousands of them were not registered with the government and these were the “teaching grounds and recruiting points for militants and Taliban.” The VOA stated that it collected these statistics from Pakistani and Afghan intelligence officials and experts who told its correspondents that the abundance of unregistered madressahs across the country resulted in an increase in militancy in the Afghan-Pakistan region.

“The schools nurture militants’ ideology and provide foot soldiers for the Taliban, who have been engaged in a bloody insurgency with the US-backed Afghan government for more than a decade,” the report added. According to the report, much of the militant activity was centred in Balochistan, where 5,500 madressahs operate as boarding schools.

Amin-ul-Hasnat Shah, the minister of state for religious affairs, emphasised the national position that funds for many madressahs are sourced from abroad, mostly through Arab countries. “The government is monitoring the money trail and how this money is spent and utilised by the madressahs. We want to ensure that these funds are not used for any suspicious activity or to promote extremism through Islamic seminaries in Pakistan.”

The report also included statistics provided by the Balochistan government, estimating that more than 5,000 Afghans were studying at madressahs in the province. The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah, reportedly operated a seminary in Kuchlak, Quetta, the report added. The investigation shed light on the increasing links of some madrassas — Islamic seminaries — in Pakistan with Afghan Taliban who are fighting the Afghan government and U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan.

Washington and Kabul accuse Pakistan of harboring militant opposition of the Afghan government, including the Taliban's Quetta Council, which is composed of Taliban leadership and the Haqqani Network — a U.S.-designated terror organization. Extremist groups who support militancy in Afghanistan and are U.S.-designated terrorist groups run countrywide networks of madrassas, according to American intelligence reports. Though banned in Pakistan, the groups operate under different names while supporting the Afghan Taliban.

Mr Shah said the government “has pledged to reform these madressahs through registration and change of syllabus” and it was determined to “keep an eye on any extremism-related activities or links in these madressahs.”

Sediq Seddiqi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Mini­stry of Interior, stated that Afghan intelligence officials, assisted by international investigators, probed a terror attack last month that killed five Emirati diplomats in Kandahar, they traced the suspects to a conservative religious seminary in Pakistan. "The attack was planned in Mawlawi Ahmad Madrassa in Chaman, Quetta," said Seddiqi.

Ihsan Ghani, chief of the National Counter Terrorism Authority, said the government has undertaken multiple initiatives to develop a new national counter-extremism policy, which includes reforming the madrassa system. In an attempt to strengthen the broad-spectrum arrangements, the government had vowed to register all unregistered madressahs, he added.

“Many of them are kept from government scrutiny and are breeding points for terror,” the report claimed.

Last year, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government was criticized for a $3 million grant it allocated to the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, a controversial Islamic seminary headed by former senator Samiul Haq, the madrassa houses about 4,000 students and is widely known for links to, and has at many times publicly expressed sympathies for, the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. Hence, it has marked association for Islamic cleric the title of "Father of the Taliban" and dubbed his seminary as 'University of Jihad.'

Both Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani — founders of Afghanistan's Taliban and the ruthless Haqqani Network, respectively — are believed to have studied in the Haqqania madrassa. Taliban leader Mullah Akthar Mansoor, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in May, also may have been a former student.

Pakistani officials say they are investigating funding connections of madrassas associated with the Taliban.</s>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Lashkar Gah has been the site of multiple suicide bombings, such as this one on 11 February

Twelve policemen have been killed in an "insider attack" in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials say.

A police source told the BBC that an infiltrator from the Taliban had allowed militants into the outpost in the regional capital, Lashkar Gah. The infiltrator fled with the Taliban.

Other reports said the infiltrator killed the policemen himself.

A spokesperson for the provincial governor confirmed the attack, but did not provide details.

Local television news reported that the Taliban seized weapons and ammunition from the scene, and that a local hospital had confirmed receipt of at least 11 bodies.

But a Helmand police official made no mention of a Taliban infiltrator in his comments on the attack.

"The Taliban attacked a guard with silenced guns and then entered the check post," Helmand deputy police chief Haji Gulai told Reuters news agency.

"They attacked other policemen with hand grenades and killed all of them. They later took their weapons and ammunition and escaped."

A Taliban spokesman later said the group carried out the attack and that 12 police had been killed.

Lashkar Gah has come under increased pressure from the Taliban in recent months.

The city of 200,000 people is seen as strategically important, and the key to holding Helmand province.

The province is both a fertile farming region and a centre for opium production, bordering Pakistan on one end and covering major routes between cities.

Thousands of people fled the rural areas to shelter in Lashkar Gah last August, before the city itself came under attack in October.

The city was previously the scene of heavy fighting between the Taliban and Nato-led forces before their withdrawal in 2014.</s>The Afghan Taliban said on Wednesday Pakistan has not freed their former second-in-command, Mullah Baradar, as promised and that his health is deteriorating in prison.

Baradar is seen by many in Afghanistan as the key to restarting peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.

"Unfortunately he still spends his days and nights in prison, and his health condition in worrying. It is getting worse day by day," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.</s>At least 11 Afghan policemen have been killed by a member of the Taliban militant group who had infiltrated the ranks of the police force in southern Afghanistan.

The assault reportedly took place late on Monday night in the vicinity of the 2nd police district in Lashkargah City, the provincial capital of Helmand.

Local media said a man in police uniform opened fire at officers at a checkpoint in Lashkargah. The attacker reportedly escaped the scene.

Helmand Province is a stronghold of the Taliban. Over the past month, Afghan security forces have been busy foiling Taliban attacks on some key districts of the province, including Lashkargah.

Afghanistan is gripped by insecurity more than 14 years after the United States and its allies attacked the country as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues across the country.

The US-led combat mission in Afghanistan ended on December 31, 2014. However, thousands of foreign forces, mainly from the US, have remained in the country in what Washington calls a support mission.</s>At least 11 policemen have been killed in an insider attack in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Apparently the incident has taken place by a member of the Taliban militant group who had infiltrated the ranks of the police.

The attack took place late on Monday night in a checkpoint in 2nd police district in Lashkar Gah City, the provincial capital of Helmand.

Reportedly after committing the crime, the attacker has taken the weapons and escaped the scene.

Provincial governor spokesman, Omar Zwak confirmed the incident, saying the incident happened and the case being investigated.

Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman claimed of responsibility and insisted that 11 policemen had been killed in attack on police checkpoint in “Soargodar” area of Lashkar Gah City.

Helmand province is a stronghold of the Taliban. Over the past month, Afghan security forces have been busy foiling Taliban attacks on some key district of the province, including Lashkar Gah.</s>At least eleven Afghan policemen lost their lives in an attack in Lashkargah city, the provincial capital of southern Helmand province.

The incident took place late on Monday night in the vicinity of 2nd police district of the city.

A local security source confirmed that the attack was carried out by a Taliban insurgent who had infiltrated among the police forces.

Helmand is among the volatile provinces in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgents are actively operating in its various districts and frequently conduct insurgency activities.

The province is also a central hub for drugs cultivation, production and smuggling which pours millions of dollars into the pockets of the Taliban insurgents, fueling their insurgency against the government.

The group launched numerous attacks on some key districts of Helmand province including the capital Lashkargah city in the past one month but the local officials are saying that the attacks were repulsed by the Afghan security forces.

Earlier, the officials were saying that the Taliban group is attempting to seize control of the province in a bid to shift their key leadership councils and leaders.

Follow Khaama Press (KP) | Afghan News Agency on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook. Stay updated via RSS</s>Taliban fighters in the southern Afghan province of Helmand attacked a checkpoint with silenced weapons and hand grenades early on Tuesday killing 12 policemen and stealing weapons and ammunition, officials said.

But a provincial official said that it could be an insider attack as one of the guards was still missing.

"An investigation is ongoing to find out if someone from inside has defected to the Taliban and paved the way for this crime," he said.

The attack, in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, underlined the threat facing Afghan security forces in the opium-producing province, where they struggle to match well-equipped Taliban fighters who now control several districts.

The police killed in the attack had been pulled back from the southern district of Khanshin district which security forces abandoned last year.

"The Taliban attacked a guard with silenced guns and then entered the check post," Helmand deputy police chief Haji Gulai told reporters.

"They attacked other policemen with hand grenades and killed all of them. They later took their weapons and ammunition and escaped." he said.

In a separate incident, another 12 policemen were killed in the Marjah district of Helmand after an hour-long gunbattle, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Taliban fighters now control most of Helmand, including areas in Lashkar Gah. British and US forces suffered their heaviest casualties of the war in the province in years of fighting following the removal of the Taliban in 2001.

Afghan security forces now control less than 60 percent of the country, according to US estimates, with the Taliban in control of about 10 percent and the remainder contested between government and insurgent forces.
Twelve Afghan National Police officers are killed in a Taliban "infiltration attack" in the southern Helmand Province.