Afghan suicide bomber kills children
Six children were killed by a suicide car bomber who blew himself up next to a police truck in southern Afghanistan today.
The blast, near a market in Dand district to the west of Kandahar city, was aimed at a regional official being taken to work in the truck. He escaped unharmed.
It fits the pattern of Taliban attacks. As additional Western forces have poured into the group’s strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the insurgents have mounted a counter-campaign of bombings and assassinations at those affiliated with the Afghan government.
The Taliban also attacked a second government official in the east. The convoy of a presidential adviser was hit by a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a rickshaw as it was driving through Jalalabad city. He was wounded but not seriously.
In eastern Nuristan province, Nato and Afghan troops attacked two villages that had been held by the Taliban, killing more than 30 as they secured the Bachancha and Badmuk villages.
The attacks were part of an ongoing effort to secure the area around the village of Barg-e-Matal which has shuttled between government and insurgent control in recent months.
Elsewhere, coalition and Afghan troops arrested a senior commander of the Haqqani group, an al-Qaida-linked wing of the Taliban based in neighbouring Pakistan.
