Kabul  - Three policemen were killed in roadside bomb blasts in the latest Taliban-led attacks, while 15 insurgents were killed in an airstrike conducted by international forces in eastern region, officials said on Saturday.

Two policemen were killed and four others were wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a remote-controlled mine in Waghaz district of the southern Ghazni province on Saturday morning, Haji Mohammad Zaman, deputy provincial police chief said.

He said that the wounded officers were taken to hospital, where their condition was reported stable.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted at their website and said that eight police officers were killed in the attack.

The statement said that following the attack, Taliban fighters exchanged fire with police, during which three Taliban militants were "slightly wounded".

Information provided by the Taliban is often proven to be false or exaggerated.

In another attack on Saturday morning, one police officer was killed and another wounded in a roadside attack in Bala Boluk district of western Farah province, said Khalil Rahmani, provincial police chief.

In eastern Paktika province, a provincial spokesman said on Saturday that at least 15 suspected Taliban militants were killed in a NATO-led airstrike on Friday evening.

Taliban militants fired several rockets at police headquarters Charbaran district of the province that wounded a police officer, Ghamai Khan Mohammadyar, spokesman for provincial governor told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"International forces were called in for support and an airstrike pounded their positions, killing 15 Taliban militants," Mohammadyar said.

Taliban-led violence is on the rise again following the bloodiest year in 2007, during which more than 8,000 people - mostly insurgents - were killed. (dpa)