KABUL, Afghanistan -- A Taliban campaign focusing on the Afghan police appears to have intensified in recent days, with five attacks reported Saturday in which at least 15 policemen were killed throughout the country. Three of the policemen died in a NATO airstrike.

The latest casualties were in addition to a Taliban massacre of private security guards in Helmand Province on Friday morning, in which the death toll has now risen to 25; the poisonings of six policemen in Kandahar Province on Monday, reportedly by a cook who defected to the Taliban; and the suicide bombing deaths of four policemen, including a district commander, in Kandahar Province on Wednesday.

Afghanistan's police officers have long had the largest share of casualties on the government side of the conflict, with 646 policemen killed in 2009, compared with 412 foreign coalition troops and 282 Afghan National Army soldiers, according to figures compiled by Brookings Afghanistan Index.