Afghan suicide bomber kills six
A suicide bomber blew himself up today in an eastern Afghan city, killing six civilians and wounding 40 others, officials said, while a blast in a nearby market killed a shopkeeper.
Acting on a tip, police tried to stop a suspicious looking man in the city of Khost, said provincial police chief General Mohammad Ayub. When he tried to flee, police chased him and opened fire, at which point he detonated his explosives, Ayub said.
Khost public health director Gul Mohammad Mohammadi said that six civilians were killed and 40 others were wounded, most of them with minor injuries. Fifteen people suffered serious injuries and were taken to hospital, he said.
Ayub had initially said three civilians were killed and two policemen wounded.
An earlier bomb attack at a shop in a Khost market left a shopkeeper dead and eight people wounded, Ayub said, describing the incident as a dispute between different tribes.
In neighbouring Paktia province, suspected Taliban militants ambushed a police patrol on Saturday in the Zormat district, and the ensuing clash left five militants and a police officer dead, said Paktia police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjan.
Officers recovered five militants’ bodies with their weapons and one of their vehicles, Sarjan said.
In Nangarhar province, US and Afghan troops killed one person and detained nine others during a raid on a compound on Saturday, the US-led coalition said in a statement.
The compound was used by people the coalition accused of involvement in “facilitating” several suicide attacks in recent weeks.
“During the operation, a militant grabbed a weapon and was shot and killed by combined forces,” the statement said.
The latest violence came as Nato and Afghan troops pushed forward with their largest-ever offensive launched last month in southern Afghanistan to flush out Taliban militants from the northern tip of opium-producing Helmand province.
Scores of militants have been killed in a campaign aimed at facilitating economic development, and to persuade Afghans to support President Hamid Karzai’s feeble government.
