Taliban insurgents ambushed and killed 10 Afghan employees of a private security company in the south of the country on Monday, the Interior Ministry said.
Three other staff of the company were wounded in the pre-dawn raid on a highway in the southern province of Zabul, it said in a statement. The insurgents fled after the ambush, the ministry said.
A provincial official said the victims worked for a U.S. private security company.
The ambush happened on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, the same roadway where 23 South Koreans were kidnapped on July 19.
The attack sparked a three-hour gunbattle said Jailani Khan, the commander of highway police in Zabul province.
NATO reported that Romanian soldiers later came upon the convoy and rescued the survivors.
Hours before the ambush, Taliban insurgents stormed a police post in the southwestern province of Nimroz, killing five police and abducting four others, a provincial official said.
A Taliban spokesman said rebels fighting the Afghan government and foreign forces were behind the ambush.
More than 6,500 people have been killed in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since Taliban's removal from power in 2001.