Four employees of a road construction company were killed as they came under rocket attack carried out by militants in Kunar province east of Afghanistan, local officials said Thursday.

"A rocket fired by insurgents in Sauki district Wednesday evening leaving four employees of a local road construction company Unique Builders dead," director of the company Hasib Kulimzai told Xinhua.

Kulimzai added that four more employees including two guards were injured in the incident.

Meantime, police chief of Kunar province Abdul Jalal Jalal said that the company was a national one and all the victims were Afghans.

No groups or individuals have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Conflicts and Taliban-related violence have claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people with some 2,000 civilians so far this year in Afghanistan.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2008)