GHAZNI, 24 December 2007 — Around two dozens of people, including several civilians, were killed in the latest spate of Taleban-linked violence across Afghanistan, authorities said yesterday.
Three civilians, including a woman, were killed when a bomb hit their vehicle in the eastern province of Khost, a troubled region near the Pakistani border, provincial police spokesman Mohammad Yaqob said.
Two other civilians were wounded by the same bomb, which he said was detonated remotely like many others used in Taleban attacks on security forces.
The Taleban on Saturday shot dead seven men, two of them truck drivers for a Western security firm, who had been kidnapped in the past week, police and a rebel spokesman said.
A Taleban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said the men — three policemen, two soldiers and the drivers — were killed after attempting to escape “from our jail.”
Ghazni province police chief Khan Mohammad Mujahed told AFP that three bodies had been recovered.
In their biggest hostage-taking, the Taleban captured 23 South Korean nationals in July in the same province. They killed two of the group of Christian aid workers before releasing the remainder. The Defense Ministry said troops killed 10 rebels in the southern province of Kandahar on Friday. Several other militants and four soldiers were wounded, it said.
Meanwhile, the US-led coalition said its troops working with Afghan security forces killed “multiple” Taleban insurgents yesterday in Uruzgan province.
The Afghan Interior Ministry said four rebels were killed in the same region, but it was not known if it was the same incident.
The Defense Ministry also said its men destroyed a drugs-processing lab in the town of Musa Qala in southern Helmand province.
Italian PM Meets Karzai
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi held talks yesterday with President Hamid Karzai and the commander of a NATO force involved in an international effort against Afghanistan’s growing and deadly insurgency. Prodi’s Christmastime visit follows trips Saturday by the leaders of France and Australia, who also have troops in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) working to combat the Taleban-led insurgency.
The Italian leader met ISAF commander US Gen. Dan McNeill, a force spokesman said without being able to give details of their discussions.
Photographers were later able to take pictures of Prodi with Karzai at the presidential palace although details of their meetings were also not released.
The prime minister later traveled to the western city of Herat, where most of Italy’s more than 2,300 troops in Afghanistan are based.
Italy has lost 10 soldiers in Afghanistan, one of them an intelligence officer wounded when Italian and British commandos freed him and a colleague from capture by rebels in September. The officer later died of his injuries.
Ten other people died in the raid — nine of the abductors, said by Afghan police to be Taleban rebels, and an Afghan interpreter.
