HERAT: Taliban gunmen killed eight local policemen in an attack on a remote post in westernAfghanistan, a provincial official said Thursday.

The attack happened late on Wednesday, said Naqibullah Farahi, spokesman for the provincial administration of Farah, which bordersIran. Earlier a suicide bomb attack had claimed 12 lives in northern Afganistan the same day.

“The Taliban attacked an Afghan local police post” in Khaki Safed district, he told AFP. “There were eight people in the post and all were killed.” Investigators have gone to the area, he added.

Contacted by AFP, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack and said 12 local policemen had been killed. The Taliban regularly exaggerate their claims.

Afghan police are regularly targeted by the militants who have been fighting a decade-long insurgency against President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government.

Earlier this week six people including four policemen were poisoned and shot dead at a police post inHelmandprovince, which neighbours Farah, days after a policeman in Paktika province poisoned and then shot dead nine of his colleagues while they slept.