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3 US troops die in attack on Kandahar police HQ.

A car bomb and gunfight at the entrance of a police headquarters killed three U.S. troops and five civilians in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said Wednesday.

An Afghan police officer also died in the attack on the compound of the elite Afghan National Civili Order Police late Tuesday night, a provincial spokesman said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

A suicide attacker slammed a car bomb into the entrance of the compound, then insurgents opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, a NATO statement said. A combined force of international troops and police kept the attackers from entering the compound and eventually fought them off, but three American troops died along with five civilian workers, NATO said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi telephoned reporters Wednesday to claim responsibility for the attack. The militant group, which is prone to exaggerate death tolls inflicted on Afghan and international security forces, claimed 13 international troops and eight Afghan security forces died in the raid.

Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. The insurgents have intensified attacks on government targets as Afghan and international reinforcements move in.

The Civil Order Police compound in Mirwais Miani district was near one of the 11 new checkpoints set up in recent weeks around the city, Kandahar provincial spokesman Zulmi Ayubi said. He said it was unclear whether the dead police officer was from the Civil Order Police, an elite force within the national police, or the local Kandahar city police.

The new checkpoints are manned by the elite Afghan unit along with international forces in a push to increase security in the south's largest city, where Taliban operatives have long operated.

At the same time, thousands of NATO and Afghan troops are streaming into the surrounding province to pressure insurgents in rural areas. The strategy is to secure the population with the additional trained police and troops so that capable governance and development projects designed to build capacity can win the loyalty of the city's half-million residents.