|
5 killed in suicide attack
14/12/2006 13:21 - (SA)
Kandahar - A suicide car
attack killed at least five people in southern Afghanistan on
Thursday, police and a hospital doctor said, the latest deaths
in the bloodiest year since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001.
The blast occurred soon after a convoy of presidential
security guards passed through Qalat, the provincial capital of
southern Zabul province, on their way back to Kabul from a
visit to the south by President Hamid Karzai.
Residents said they believed the guards were the intended
target.
The bomber's car hit the vehicle of a provincial police
officer who was some distance from the convoy, a policeman
said.
The officer and 14 other people were wounded. Most of the
victims were civilians, including children, a doctor said.
About 4 000 people, a quarter of them civilians, have been
killed in fighting this year.
Most of the violence has occurred in the south and the
east, bordering Pakistan where the militants have sanctuaries.
In his harshest criticism of Pakistan since he took control
of Afghanistan after the Taliban's fall, Karzai said this week that Islamabad still supported the Taliban.
Islamabad, the Taliban's former sponsor, acknowledges there
is some cross-border infiltration by militants into
Afghanistan, but denies supporting rebels and says the violence
is due to Afghanistan's internal problems and what it calls the inefficiency of its government.
On Thursday, hundreds of tribesmen protested in the
southeastern province of Khost demanding the punishment of
foreign troops who killed at least four people, including a
teenage girl, in a raid in the province on Tuesday.
Villagers say those killed were civilians and two were
government employees, but the US military said it killed four
suspected militants.
Civilian deaths are a sensitive issue for Karzai and
foreign troops led by the US military and Nato.
During his visit to the volatile south this week Karzai
said he had sought assurances from Nato commanders that
alliance troops would do more to avoid civilian deaths. The
same day Nato troops shot dead a civilian in the area.
- Reuters
|
News
