Afghan blasts, ambush kill 17
Pastor Dale Morgan
Sunday April 22, 6:56 PM
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Afghan blasts, ambush kill 17*
Two bomb blasts killed 11 people in Afghanistan's eastern city of Khost
Sunday, while five rebels and a policeman died in a battle elsewhere,
officials said.
The deadliest explosion was caused by a suicide bomber, wearing police
uniform and riding a motorcycle, who detonated his explosives in a busy
meat market in Khost, provincial deputy intelligence director Mira Jan
told AFP.
At least 10 people were killed, most of them civilians, provincial
public health director Gul Mohammad Mohammadi said. More than 40 were
wounded, four of whom were in a coma, he said.
Police immediately sealed off the crowded area, said an AFP reporter
behind the cordon. Ambulances and police vehicles carried away bodies.
Security officials had been on the lookout for an attacker since
Saturday, Jan said. At least three of the dead were shopkeepers, he said.
Hours before the suicide attack, a bomb in a camera exploded in a shop
in a central market in the city, killing one man and wounding seven,
officials said.
Mohammadi, the Khost health director, said the wounded had said the
blast was linked to a private argument, not the raging Taliban
insurgency, and had followed a fight between two rival groups late Saturday.
Police said the cause of the blast was being investigated.
Khost, near the border with Pakistan, has recently been hard-hit by
violence linked to the insurgency as the Taliban have stepped up the use
of Iraq-style suicide bombings and ambushes.
In the neighbouring province of Paktia meanwhile, a mob of Taliban
fighters ambushed a police patrol early Sunday, kicking off a three-hour
battle, a government spokesman said.
"Five enemies were killed and their bodies were left at the
battlefield," Din Mohammad Darwaish said. "One policeman was also
martyred and another was wounded."
Seven rockets were also fired at a US-led military base, Camp Salerno,
north of Khost city overnight. There were no casualties reported.