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12 die in Afghanistan violence
13/12/2006 10:54 - (SA)
Kabul - US-led troops killed at least
four people, including a teenage girl, in a raid in south-eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday and a suicide bomber killed eight more in the south, residents, officials and coalition forces have said.
The target of the suicide bomber was the governor of
Helmand, Mohammad Daud, who escaped unhurt, the officials said.
Four police, two army soldiers and two civilians were killed
in the attack in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand,
a Taliban stronghold and the main drug-producing region of the
world's leading heroin producer.
"It was a suicide attack and the target was the governor," Helmand police chief Mohammad Nabi Mullahkhail said.
The attack is the latest in the bloodiest year to have
gripped Afghanistan since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban
government in 2001.
A British Marine was killed when Taliban forces attacked a
patrol in a district in Helmand, Britain's Ministry of Defence said, making a total of 43 British troops killed since 2001.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the
Helmand suicide attack, but Taliban militants have carried out
many such raids across the country this year.
Hours before the blast, US-led forces killed at least four
people in the southeastern province of Khost where the Taliban
and their Islamic allies are highly active.
But there were conflicting accounts about who was killed in
the pre-dawn raid in Dornami village.
Residents say the US-led force, backed by Afghan militias,
broke into a house, drawing fire from the occupants who thought
they were thieves. Four people were killed and seven wounded -
all of them civilians, they said.
The US-led coalition said in a statement the raid killed
five people - four suspected terrorists and a young girl. The
troops requested the surrender of those in the compound.
- Reuters
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