Three killed in Afghan violence

AFGHANISTAN: Three civilians and two militants were killed in Afghanistan Saturday in incidents including the bombing of a tractor in the troubled south of the war-torn country, officials said.

The first explosion took place in Marjah district in the southern Helmand province as a tractor carrying civilians struck a roadside mine, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.

“Two civilians were killed and one injured in the blast,” Ahmadi said.

Ahmadi blamed the “enemies of peace and stability”, a term often used by Afghan officials to describe the Taliban, for the attack.

A third civilian was killed when a magnetic bomb attached to his vehicle exploded in the southeastern city of Khost Saturday, deputy police chief Muhammad Yaqub told AFP.

The victim owned a cassette shop in the city, he added.

Separately, two militants were killed in Greshk district of Helmand province Saturday as they tried to plant a mine, an army spokesman said.

“Two enemies of Afghanistan were killed while planting a mine to target innocent Afghans in Greshk district, but their device exploded prematurely, killing both on the spot,” an army spokesman in Helmand, Rasool Mohammad Safi, said.

The incidents come one day after a Taliban suicide bomber targeted a bathhouse in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, killing 17 people including a police officer.

Twenty-three people were also injured in the explosion, the deadliest in Afghanistan since October.

The United Nations has said that 2,412 Afghan civilians died in the first 10 months of 2010, an increase of 20 percent on the corresponding period in 2009.

The Afghan interior ministry said 1,292 policemen died in the war last year.

The Taliban, who were ousted from power in a US-led invasion in 2001, have vowed to increase their assaults against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Kabul, Sunday, AFP