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KHOST, Afghanistan, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents ambushed and killed a senior police officer in eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials said on Sunday, the latest in a string of insurgent assassinations of government officials.
The incident came a day after NATO leaders wrapped up a major summit in Lisbon to endorse plans to hand control of security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
Akbar Jan, chief of police for Musa Khil district in restive Khost province, which shares a border with Pakistan, was killed in an ambush by insurgents, provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Esaaqzai told Reuters.
Two of his bodyguards were also wounded, Esaaqzai said.
Last month, a bombing of a mosque killed the governor of Kunduz province together with at least 12 other worshippers.
In the same month roadside bombs planted by Taliban insurgents also killed a district police chief in western Herat together with three other officers, and a district governor from eastern Nangarhar with two aides.
Violence has risen across Afghanistan, with civilian and military casualties reaching record levels this year as the Taliban-led insurgency spreads out of traditional strongholds in the south and east into the once stable north and west. (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)< /A1> (Reporting by Elyas Wahdat, writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison)
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