The Latest: Taliban stalk hospital killing wounded police

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Latest on developments in Afghanistan (all times local):

5 p.m.

An Afghan health official says Taliban fighters, after capturing the remote district of Taywara in western Ghor province, stalked the corridors of the only hospital looking for wounded Afghan National Security personnel to kill.

Provincial public health department director Ghulam Nabi Yaghana says he has received reports that Taliban fighters killed four or five patients.

The area is remote and telephone communication is sporadic, he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the provincial capital of Ferozkoh. He said the Taliban entered the 20-bed hospital early Sunday soon after capturing the district center. They killed the patients they believed were military or police personnel, he said.

___

12:10 p.m.

An Afghan official says Taliban fighters have captured a second district headquarters in as many days, this one in western Ghor province. Six police were killed.

Ghor provincial police chief Mohammad Mustafa Moseni says his forces retreated after multiple assaults on the Taywara district headquarters. He says additional troops are marshalling outside the district for a counter offensive.

The Taliban in a statement to the media announced the capture of Taywara district headquarters. The statement said 46 Afghan government security forces were killed. There was no way to independently verify either death tolls.

___

10:30 a.m.

An Afghan official says Taliban fighters overran a district headquarters in northern Afghanistan after a ferocious fight that left two police dead in northern Faryab province.

Abdul Karim Yourish, provincial police chief spokesman, said Sunday the assault on the Lawlash district government headquarters was launched under the cover of darkness late Saturday. Government offices as well as the police headquarters were located inside the compound.

In recent days, the Taliban have launched dozens of attacks in northern Afghanistan, temporarily closing a key highway between the capital Kabul and northern Afghanistan. The attacks reflect the Taliban's efforts to apply pressure on government troops and police across the country and not just in their strongholds in the south and east of Afghanistan.