40 killed in attacks, clashes in Afghanistan
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E-mail Xinhua, January 30, 2015
More than 40 people have been killed and more than 50 others wounded in attacks and clashes in Afghanistan since late Wednesday, authorities said on Thursday.
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Afghans carry the body of a suicide bombing victim in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar on Jan. 29, 2015. More than 40 people have been killed and more than 50 others wounded in attacks and clashes in Afghanistan since late Wednesday. [Photo/Xinhua] |
In one attack, 17 people were killed and nearly 40 others wounded after a suicide bomber targeted a funeral in eastern Laghman province Thursday afternoon.
"A service was underway for a police named Sayyeda Jan, who was killed along with three members of his family in a bomb attack earlier on Thursday morning in the provincial capital of Mehtarlam. The blast left 17 killed and 39 others wounded," a security source told Xinhua.
The attack took place at around 3:00 p.m. local time in Pahlawan Baba, a locality in Mehtarlam.
Sayyeda Jan was a senior member of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) . The Afghan government established the ALP, or community police, in 2010 to protect villages and districts where army and police have limited presence.
The killed included 12 civilians and four police officials and the injured included 36 civilians and three policemen, according to a statement issued by the provincial government.
Dr. Fazlullah Mujadidi, acting provincial governor of Laghman, strongly condemned the attack, blaming the Taliban insurgent group for the killing.
Separately, a vendor child was killed in a bombing in Jalalabad city, capital of neighboring Nangarhar province, earlier Thursday, provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told Xinhua, adding that the potential target of the attack remained unknown.
Also earlier Thursday, security forces shot and killed a suicide bomber, who tried to target a district police chief in southern Kandahar province with a tricycle packed with explosive.
The explosive-laden rickshaw was detonated following the firing but Badsha Khan, the district police chief of Shah Wali Kot, remained unhurt and no security force was hurt in the attack, Khan told Xinhua.
Elsewhere, three foreign militants were killed after the Afghan army's helicopter gunships pounded a militants' hideout in Jurm district of northern Badakhshan province earlier Thursday morning, deputy provincial police chief Abdul Qadir Sayyad told Xinhua, adding that the killed were Tajikistani militants fighting alongside the Taliban militants in the area.
Furthermore, 11 pro-government tribesmen and seven militants were killed in exchange of fire Wednesday night, after the Taliban launched an attack on a security checkpoint in the eastern province of Ghazni.
About six tribesmen, also called uprising fighters, and six militants were wounded, and the checkpoint was destroyed.
On Wednesday night, two civilians were shot dead by militants in Sayyed Abad district of eastern Wardak province. The motive behind the killing was unknown.
Late Wednesday, a policewoman was killed and one police was injured after a bomb went off inside a police checkpoint in Herat city, the capital of western Herat province.
The Taliban has intensified attacks with a string of bombings over the past couple of months as the Afghan National Security Forces assumed earlier this month the full security charges from NATO-led troops after a four-year security transition process ending on Dec. 31 last year.
The Taliban urged civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people not to support the government.
About 10,000 civilians were killed and injured in Taliban-led insurgency and conflicts in the central Asian country in 2014, according to UN mission officials.
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