Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported at 1230 GMT on Friday.

* ZABUL - Twenty militants and one Afghan army officer were killed in a clash between the Taliban and Afghan and foreign troops in southeastern Zabul's Shinkai district on Thursday, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said. He said documents found on six of the dead insurgents indicated they were from Pakistan.

* HERAT - A suicide bomber on a motorcycle wounded two soldiers from NATO-led forces near Shindand in west Afghanistan, a spokesman for the alliance said. Regional police commander General Ekramuddin Yawar said an Italian military vehicle was hit by the bomber.

* FARAH - One policeman was killed by Taliban insurgents in an attack on a security checkpoint in Farah City in west Afghanistan late on Thursday, the area's police commander said. Three insurgents were killed in the clash, he said.

KHOST - A roadside bomb killed five security guards -- four Afghans and a foreigner -- working for an Indian road construction company in eastern Khost province's Waze Khan district, local official Abdul Wali Zadran said. Another seven were wounded.

BALKH - A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car in northern Balkh province's capital Mazar-i-Sharif but there were no casualties, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.