KANDAHAR: Fresh Afghan violence left 13 people dead, including wedding-goers and a US soldier in new attacks ahead of elections, as the Nato chief on Thursday visited militants’ hotspots in the south.
A wave of Taliban attacks has raised fears that violence will mar presidential and provincial council elections on August 20 and damage the credibility of the polls.
A bomb ripped through a trailer taking villagers to a wedding and towed by a farm tractor — a common mode of transport in rural Afghanistan — in the southern province of Helmand on Wednesday, authorities said.
Several officials initially said 21 people were killed, including children and women, and five others wounded.
But by Thursday evening provincial police chief Assadullah Shairzad had reduced the death toll to five, saying the initial information was incorrect.
‘Now we have more accurate and fresh information and that is five civilians were killed and five were wounded,’ he said of the blast in the southern province’s troubled Garmsir district.
Provincial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi said the dead were two women, two children and one man.
The Taliban refused to accept responsibility for the blast, instead accusing US forces of killing civilians to ‘defame’ the militants.
Police bombed
A similar bomb in the same province on Thursday killed five policemen and wounded three, the interior ministry said.
The US soldier was killed in another roadside bombing, in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said.
In another attack on Thursday, militants in eastern Afghanistan ambushed a convoy of tankers transporting fuel to international forces, killing two drivers and wounding a third, the interior ministry said.
Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday continued his maiden visit to Afghanistan, which he has declared a priority since taking office, with a visit to Helmand.
He met troops and government officials for talks focussed on the international effort to end the violence.
A bomb ripped through a trailer taking villagers to a wedding and towed by a farm tractor — a common mode of transport in rural Afghanistan — in the southern province of Helmand on Wednesday, authorities said.
Several officials initially said 21 people were killed, including children and women, and five others wounded.
But by Thursday evening provincial police chief Assadullah Shairzad had reduced the death toll to five, saying the initial information was incorrect.
‘Now we have more accurate and fresh information and that is five civilians were killed and five were wounded,’ he said of the blast in the southern province’s troubled Garmsir district.
Provincial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi said the dead were two women, two children and one man.
The Taliban refused to accept responsibility for the blast, instead accusing US forces of killing civilians to ‘defame’ the militants.
Police bombed
A similar bomb in the same province on Thursday killed five policemen and wounded three, the interior ministry said.
The US soldier was killed in another roadside bombing, in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said.
In another attack on Thursday, militants in eastern Afghanistan ambushed a convoy of tankers transporting fuel to international forces, killing two drivers and wounding a third, the interior ministry said.
Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday continued his maiden visit to Afghanistan, which he has declared a priority since taking office, with a visit to Helmand.
He met troops and government officials for talks focussed on the international effort to end the violence.
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