Skip to main content

Afghan bomb blasts claim 6 lives

  • Story Highlights
  • Six people die and five injured in bomb attacks and military operations
  • Bomb hits army vehicle on Wednesday killing three soldiers
  • Roadside bomb on Tuesday hits Afghani security services working for US military
  • Attacks have shot up against coalition and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan
  • Next Article in World »
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Roadside bombings and a military operation across Afghanistan over the last two days left six people dead, five others wounded, and three detained, officials said on Wednesday.

Soldiers

Soldiers survey wreckage of bomb blast in Afghanistan as bomb attacks claim more lives

A bomb struck an army vehicle in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday morning, killing three Afghan soldiers, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Four others were wounded.

On Tuesday, a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan struck a vehicle carrying Afghan security guards working for the U.S. military.

Two guards were killed and another wounded, authorities said. The guards were on their way from a district in Khost province to their outpost along the country's border with Pakistan, said Arsala Jamal, the province's governor.

Mohammad Ayoub, the police chief of the province, said the guards were tribal militia members paid and equipped by the U.S. military to fight alongside coalition forces to quell Islamic militants.

In recent months, attacks have shot up against coalition and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan -- with militants often using roadside bombs to target them.

The U.S.-led coalition said an "armed assailant" was killed and three people were detained on Tuesday during a raid of compounds in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan targeting Taliban militants. The incident occurred in the Tarin Kowt district of the province.

Coalition forces killed the suspected insurgent when they traded fire in a building. One of the detained people had fired on coalition forces.

Helmand, Afghanistan's top poppy-producing region, and Uruzgan are among several provinces in southern Afghanistan where foreign troops continue to battle a resurgent Taliban.

But Khost in the east has shown progress in recent months.

Once "a hotbed of lawlessness and insurgent activity," Afghan officials there have worked with a U.S.-led provincial reconstruction team to promote economic development and security, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in December.

Meanwhile, all but seven of 20 Afghans and Arabs who were kidnapped Monday from a western province have been released.

A Taliban commander, Mullah Khodaidad, kidnapped the 20 after they had gone out to fish and hunt, the provincial police chief said.

Thirteen were released Tuesday after elders mediated between the government and the Taliban, an official who did not want to be named said.

U.S. troops are in their sixth year in Afghanistan battling the Taliban, the Islamic militia that once ruled most of Afghanistan, and its al Qaeda allies.

Afghanistan became the first front in the "war on terrorism" that President Bush declared after al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

CNN's Farhad Peikar contributed to this report

All About Hamid KarzaiAfghanistanHelmand ProvinceKabulSuicide Attacks

  • E-mail
  • Save
  • Print