Blast near Kabul kills three Afghan aid workers

Kabul, Sept 16: A blast hit a car on a road just to the south of the Afghan capital today, killing three Afghan aid workers and wounding one, police said.

A resurgent Taliban have unleashed a wave of violence across the Afghan south and east this year and attacks have also increased in parts of the country previously considered safe, including Kabul and the west.

The aid workers' car was hit by a mine, said senior Kabul police official Alishah Paktiawal.

''It killed three of them and wounded one. They were from a non-governmental organisation but I don't know which one,'' Paktiawal said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Paktiawal blamed ''enemies of Afghanistan'', a term the government uses to refer to the Taliban and allied militants.

While NATO forces have in recent weeks mounted a big offensive in the southern province of Kandahar, killing hundreds of militants in the Taliban heartland, violence has flared in other areas.

Just over a week ago a suicide car-bomber attacked a US military patrol in central Kabul, killing 16 people including two US soldiers.

Separately, Taliban fighters have seized an area on the main road in the remote southwestern province of Nimroz, where attacks have been rare, the province's governor said.

''We want the government to do something as soon as possible, this is a strategic place. This road links Herat and Kandahar,'' the governor, Ghulam Dastagir, told Reuters, referring to the main towns in the west and south.

Militants also attacked and briefly seized a district government headquarters in the neighbouring western province of Farah this week, provincial police said.

In a separate incident, four Taliban were killed in an attack on a police post in the southern province of Uruzgan yesterday, police said.

The most intense phase of violence since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 has surprised the government and its Western allies and raised concern about the prospects for a country that had been seen as a success in the war on terrorism.

REUTERS

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