Kabul, January 02: Five people have been killed by a roadside bomb in a region of western Afghanistan under Taliban control, local police said on today.
The incident happened in the province of Badghis yesterday, provincial police chief Sayed Ahmad Sameh said, adding the dead were two women and three men.
They were travelling in a public mini-van when the bomb exploded in the Joi Ganj area, Sameh said.
“The Taliban rule that area and government forces can’t go there because of planted mines,” he said.
In western Farah province, which like Badghis is experiencing escalating violence as Taliban influence spreads to previously peaceful areas, three militants were killed by police in a shootout late yesterday, police said.
The gun battle followed an attempt by militants to kidnap a truck driver and seize his truck loaded with asphalt for road construction, said Ikramuddin Yawar, chief of police for western Afghanistan.
The shootout happened between the Bala Buluk and Dilaram districts, which have been blighted by heavy Taliban presence in recent months, he said.
The Taliban are spreading across the country, Western military intelligence officials say, and the effectiveness of their tactics, which include suicide attacks and remote-controlled roadside bombings, is growing.
These attacks are claiming an increasing number of civilian victims — many more than government forces — though Taliban propaganda often successfully turns the blame on international troops fighting for their eradication.
—Agencies