Maoist rebels have carried out a wave of attacks in India, killing seven people including five policemen. The rebels attacked railway stations, police stations and other targets in the states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, police said. They say officers killed six rebels. The violence came as the rebels held a strike in protest against the killing of a top leader last week.

Cherukuri Rajkumar, commonly known as Azad, died in Andhra Pradesh state. He was number two in the rebel hierarchy in the state and a spokesman for the Maoists. Security forces say Azad died in a gunfight, but the rebels say he was killed by police in a “staged encounter”. Wave of violence Police said the rebels had triggered off an explosion in the Kaunkonda area in the restive Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh, killing two policemen. Maoist guerrillas also attacked the house of a local Congress party politician and killed four people, including two policemen.

Five US soldiers have been killed in separate incidents of violence in Afghanistan, Nato has said. Three died in east Afghanistan and two were killed in separate roadside bombings in the south. A sixth American died in an accidental explosion. More than 350 Nato soldiers have been killed this year. In other violence, gunmen killed 11 Pakistani Shia tribesmen in the east and one person was killed by a motorbike bomb in Kandahar. Also on Saturday, hundreds of Afghans took to the streets of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in protest at increasing civilian deaths.