9 Afghan Cops, Including Chief, Killed In Kandahar

This story was filed by CBS News' Fazul Rahim in Kabul.

---

At least nine Afghan police have been killed in an apparent shootout with private Afghan security contractors at a government office in Kandahar. The provincial police chief and head of the criminal investigations department were among the dead, according to a local official.

At left, 2nd Lt. Malachi Bennett from Tampa, Fla. of the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines patrols with fellow Marines to the village of Khwaja Jamal in Afghanistan's Helmand province, June 28, 2009.

Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of Kandahar provincial council, said a group of Afghan contractors who provide security for foreign troops stationed in the country's volatile south forced their way into the office of the provincial attorney general Monday morning.

Karzai, who is the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai said the group was there in an attempt to free a colleague arrested earlier by police by force.

Afghan national police intervened to resolve the standoff, but a firefight broke out between police and the security contractors.

Kandahar police chief Mattiullah Qate and eight other police officers were killed and six others injured, according to Karzai.

He was not able to confirm the nationalities of the security contractors involved, but did describe them as Afghan. Karzai did not have any information on casualties amongst the security contractors, but he added that the situation in the city had returned to normal.

A high ranking delegation from Kabul was sent to Kandahar to investigate the incident.