Clashes, kidnapping as UN arrives
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Gurkha soldiers with British peacekeeping forces on foot patrol in Kabul.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- At least 10 people have been killed in clashes while a Turkish engineer has been kidnapped ahead of a high-level U.N. visit to Afghanistan.
A fierce five-hour battle between Afghan police and soldiers in the southern part of the country near Kandahar left at least ten dead and the fighting stopped only after U.S. troops intervened.
While both sides are loyal, in name at least, to President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government, clashes have broken out where they fall under rival warlords and control by Karzai's government is limited.
A U.N. delegation is arriving on Sunday to consider how NATO can bring security to these unruly provinces as Afghanistan wrestles with its worst bout of violence since the fall of the Taliban.
The week-long trip follows a Security Council resolution for NATO to expand its force of more than 5,000 beyond the capital of Kabul.
Karzai wants to impose his authority outside the capital ahead of a meeting scheduled for December that will finalize a new constitution and before elections due next June.
Elsewhere, the group that abducted a Turkish highway engineer on Thursday, is demanding the release of six Taliban prisoners.
The prisoners are being held by U.S. forces, and the kidnappers want them released by Sunday.
Turkish officials say armed men abducted Hasan Onal and his driver in southern Afghanistan.
A manager with Onal's construction firm says the kidnappers identified themselves as members of al Qaeda.
Onal had been working since June on the contract to repair part of the 300 mile highway between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, a high-profile project financed mostly by the United States.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
