JALALABAD, 15 October 2006 — Taleban militants planted a mine that hit an Afghan governor’s convoy yesterday and then opened fire on the stricken group in an assassination bid that killed a government official.

A roadside bomb also killed six Afghan militiamen hired by US-led forces in eastern Paktia province Friday. The men, part of a militia force which patrols eastern Afghanistan along with US-led forces, were killed when their car, part of a US-led military convoy, hit the remote-controlled device in Aryoob Zazi district, police said.

Other fighters with the extremist outfit meanwhile detonated a bomb against Afghan soldiers in the south of the country that wounded six, in the latest in a campaign of Taleban attacks on security forces.

Police announced they had killed three Taleban in a gunfight Friday that repelled an attack on a police patrol in the east, while NATO said two of its soldiers were wounded in an attack in the north.

The governor of eastern Laghman province, which adjoins the capital province of Kabul, was traveling to work yesterday when his two-vehicle convoy hit a mine.

“A bomb struck under our front vehicle. Then we had some shots and our friend was hit,” Gov. Gulab Mangal said. “I was in the second vehicle.” As the occupants disembarked to assess the damage, they came under small-arms fire, Mangal said. One of his administration officials was shot dead.

Taleban spokesman Mohammad Hanif said the movement had carried out the attack. “We planted the mine. We fired the gunshots,” he said. Laghman province has seen several incidents related to the Taleban-led insurgency and rivalry between local officials. Three senior district officials were killed in a similar attack in the neighboring province of Nangarhar earlier in this week.

The governor of the eastern Paktia province, Hakim Taniwal, was assassinated in a suicide bombing last month, becoming the first governor to be killed since the Taleban were toppled in 2001. The Taleban said it had carried out the attack.

In the south of Afghanistan, meanwhile, a bomb struck a military vehicle in the Zhari district of Kandahar province. “Six soldiers were very lightly injured in a remote-controlled roadside bomb,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Police and a provincial official said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. The blast came a day after a suicide blast claimed by the Taleban killed a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldier and eight Afghan civilians in Kandahar city.