KABUL, 14 August 2003 — Sixty-one people were killed and dozens wounded in outbreaks of violence across Afghanistan in the troubled country’s bloodiest 24 hours in more than a year, officials said yesterday. At least 25 people, mostly factional fighters, were killed after fighting erupted early yesterday between forces of a sacked provincial official and his successor in a remote district of Uruzgan province, a Cabinet minister said.
Also yesterday, at least 15 died, including a woman and six children, and five were wounded when a suspected Taleban bomb blew apart a bus in the southern province of Helmand.
Government forces, meanwhile, said they killed 16 Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters and lost five of their own men in clashes in the southeast that began late on Tuesday.
Yesterday evening, the US-backed government announced the replacement of governors of Kandahar and Zabul, two other provinces troubled by Taleban attacks, “to improve coordination of affairs”.
The Cabinet minister, who did not want to be further identified, said the Uruzgan fighting involved supporters of Amanullah, the former ruler of the remote district of Kajran, and his successor, Abdul Rahman Khan.
He quoted Khan as saying it started after Amanullah’s fighters opened fire on a bus carrying his supporters.
“Khan told me eight of his people died in the bus incident, in which 20 were wounded, and he lost seven others. Amanullah told me 10 of his men, including close family, were killed.” The minister said the fighting was continuing and the central government was trying to broker a cease-fire.
The bus blast in Helmand happened early in the morning in Nadi Ali district, west of the provincial capital Lashkargah.
“Eight of those killed on the bus were male, six of them were children, and there was a woman, too,” Ghulam Mahaiuddin, the head of the provincial administration told Reuters. The minibus was completely destroyed. Bits of clothing and a child’s arm could be seen in the wreckage.
Villager Sheir Ali said he heard the blast. “When we came closer, we saw many dead bodies,” he said. “We helped carry three injured people to hospital.” Mahaiuddin said it appeared the bomb had gone off accidentally inside the bus and may have been intended for an attack on independence celebrations in Lashkargah next week.
He blamed guerrillas from the Taleban regime ousted in late 2001 and said it was possible the bomber died in the blast.
Troubled Helmand was a main bastion of the Taleban until its overthrow and has been hit by several bloody attacks by a resurgent Taleban guerrilla movement in recent months.
In the southeastern province of Khost, border forces said they had killed 16 Taleban and Al-Qaeda guerrillas repulsing a major attack in which five border policemen were also killed.
Border police officer Maj. Ghafar said the insurgents used heavy guns, rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to attack a base used by a border battalion in the Shinkai area east of Khost and adjacent to the border with Pakistan on Tuesday.
