TALEBAN rebels killed 11 Afghan policemen, including a senior officer, and kidnapped 40 others, in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan yesterday.

They also seized the police compound in the town of Chora, in Uruzgan province, after a battle with 100 police, and held it for several hours.

The Taleban attacks are escalating just as the last of 3,000 British troops arrive in troubled Helmand province, and they prompted a stark warning from Ronald Neumann, the US Ambassador in Kabul.

The Taleban appeared to believe that some of the European members of Nato deploying to Afghanistan were “weak and fearful” and would “turn and run away” if attacked, he told The Times.

This was a country where people respected those who stood up to challenges, but had complete contempt for cowardice, he said.

British and Canadian soldiers had already “met the test” of facing up to the Taleban in combat, but Mr Neumann noted that other countries had dithered about whether to send troops, and said that training was very different from combat.

Every member of Nato involved in the International Security Assistance Force would at some stage be tested and needed to be ready for it. “We expected that this summer would be bloody, partly because of all the extra troops coming in from Nato. This is a time for steady nerves, (but) I think Nato will do OK,” Mr Neumann said.

In the southern province of Zabul, Muhammad Rasoul, the deputy police chief, was killed when Taleban rebels fired a rocket-propelled grenade into his car. He was rushing to the site of a Taleban ambush that had claimed the lives of at least ten highway police.

In Uruzgan province, which adjoins Helmand, 40 policemen were reportedly kidnapped by Taleban rebels. It is unlikely that they will emerge alive.

A Taleban commander told The Times this month: “We are hunting every individual who supports this imposed democracy . . . we will also hunt the puppet Afghans who are the rented bicycle for the infidels.”

The kidnappings will be particularly worrying as Taleban rebels have been dressing as police to carry out killings. Baghlan Hayatullah, 18, a police officer in Lashkar Gah, said: “It is difficult for us now to know who the enemy is.”

In one attack two weeks ago, a teacher and a security official were shot dead as they returned from a wedding in Lashkar Gah.

Safal Maloq Noori, 50, the director of education in Helmand, said that the Taleban were stepping up attacks against anyone who works for the Government, and using a variety of tactics. “It was the local Taleban who carried out this attack. It is natural that they would dress up in police uniforms,” he said.

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