Afghan official: 19 police, 7 soldiers dead in ongoing siege

An Afghan official says that 19 policemen and seven soldiers have been killed by Taliban militants who have surrounded a police compound in an ongoing siege.
Napas Khan, the police chief in the Naw Zad district of southern Helmand province, is inside the besieged police compound. He told the Associated Press over the telephone that the fighting began early this morning when insurgents attacked multiple police checkpoints across the district.
Now he says the insurgents have surrounded the compound, seized police vehicles and weapons and blocked all roads out of Naw Zad. He is pleading for an "immediate response from the government."

Helmand has long been a heartland for the Taliban, who profit heavily from opium produced in its fertile river valley.