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Members of the US Army run with an injured girl to a medivac helicopter at Michigan Base in the Pesh Valley in Afghanistan - Source: Reuters
A roadside bomb killed 12 Afghan traders as they drove through
Afghanistan's remote west in an attack apparently meant for Afghan
or foreign troops, witnesses and officials said.
Highly destructive home-made bombs planted in the road are by far
the most deadly weapons used by the Taliban and other insurgents,
frequently killing civilians as well as the security forces they
traditionally target.
"I saw 12 men were killed and four were wounded," Abdul Razzaq
Samadi, a local tribal chief who was at the scene of the blast,
said.
"I took four wounded men to the hospital. Their condition was not
good," he said.
The blast happened on a dirt road that links two districts in Farah
province, where Taliban insurgents usually plant roadside bombs to
target convoys of foreign and government troops, Samadi said.
Farah provincial governor Rohul Amin said all 16 victims were local
commuters who travelled between the two districts each day to buy
and sell goods.
Violence across Afghanistan has hit its highest level since 2001,
when the Taliban's austere Islamist government was ousted for
failing to hand over al Qaeda leaders wanted over the September 11
attacks on the United States.
Thousands of US Marines and British troops have launched major
operations in southern Helmand this month, the first major
offensives of US President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to
defeat the Taliban and stabilise Afghanistan.
Violence has spiked across the country since those operations
began, with military and civilian casualties surging.
In northern Kunduz province, German soldiers shot and killed two
civilians, including a child, when their car's driver ignored
warnings to stop as it was driven towards the soldiers, a spokesman
for German forces in Afghanistan said.
Provincial district chief, Abdul Wahed Omarkhel, said Afghan and
German soldiers were conducting operations when the car began
speeding towards them.
Two civilians were also wounded.
The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan this month
issued a new tactical directive aimed at reducing the number of
civilian casualties, often caused by air strikes, a source of great
friction between the Afghan government and its Western
allies.
About 800 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between January and
May, a 24% increase from the same period in 2008, according to UN
figures released last month.
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