One Afghan police killed in market clash

One police was killed and nine people were wounded after a clash flared up in a local bazaar in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand on Monday, police said.

"The gun firing took place after militants fired by silenced weapons on police at a checkpoint in Tirikh Nawar locality of Marja district at around midday," Abdul Rahman Sarjang, provincial police chief, told Xinhua.

Those injured included one police personnel and eight civilian shoppers.

The attack came as the Afghans celebrate the Farmer's Day falling on Monday, a day after Nawroz, the Afghan New Year Day.

Helmand, notorious for poppy growing, is also a known Taliban stronghold.

On Sunday night, some 17 militants, including six suicide bombers, were killed after Afghan army Special Forces raided a Taliban militants' prison in Helmand's Nahri Sarraj district, the Afghan Defense Ministry said earlier on Monday.

"The raid was conducted in Shorkai area of the district. A total of 16 countrymen were freed from Taliban's prison that belonged to a Taliban local leader named Mullah Abdul Barri Zakir," the ministry said in a statement, adding that no member of security force was killed during the raid.

In a separate incident, one policeman and two civilians were wounded after a bomb went off near the house of a local police official in Nahrin district of northern Baghlan province, the district governor, Abdul Fatah Hattif, told Xinhua.

Violence has been on the rise since the drawdown of foreign forces over the past two years as the Afghan security forces struggle against a surge in attacks by anti-government fighters.

The NATO and U.S. forces completed their combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, after 13 years of military presence in the Asian country. Enditem