Roadside bombs kill 17 Afghan civilians (Roundup)

Jan 16, 2011, 14:21 GMT

Kabul - Three roadside bomb attacks killed 17 civilians, including children, in Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.

Nine civilians were killed in the northern province of Baghlan when their vehicle was hit by a bomb, according to the provincial governor.

'A roadside bomb destroyed a vehicle carrying nine civilians to a wedding in a village,' Baghlan governor Munshi Abdul Majeed said.

Six women, two men and a child were killed in the blast, he said.

Six civilians were killed in a similar roadside bomb blast in the Helmand province on Saturday, in the south of the country.

The bomb struck a minibus carrying nine civilians, killing six of and injuring three, according to a statement from the governor's office.

Women and children were among the dead.

Meanwhile, two people were killed and one injured in a similar bombing in neighbouring Uruzgan on Saturday, the provincial governor, Khudai Rahim, told the German Press Agency dpa.

The bomb struck a civilian car in Gezab district, he said.

Roadside bombings carried out by the Taliban as part of its insurgency kill mostly Afghan and international troops. However, civilians are often among the fatalities.

According to the Interior Ministry, 2,309 of the 6,716 terrorist attacks in the country last year were roadside bombings.

The battle against the Taliban insurgency has tallied a high civilian death toll of 2,043 last year, the ministry said Sunday.

The number is lower than the United Nations' projection of 2,400 civilian deaths in the first 10 months of this year, marking a 25- per-cent increase on the death toll in 2010.

Local and international troops, as well as the Taliban militants are to blame for civilian deaths.

Read more about Afghanistan Conflict