KABUL: Two separate bombings killed 11 people near Afghanistan’s volatile eastern border with Pakistan yesterday, officials said, marring a festive day throughout the country as citizens celebrated the Persian new year.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a NATO soldier was killed in a “hostile incident” in the country's south, the military alliance said yesterday.
A bomb detonated by remote control killed five people in the country's eastern Khost province as they celebrated Nowruz, the Persian new year, said the provincial police spokesman, Wazir Pacha. The blast on the outskirts of Khost city wounded five people, he said.
North of Khost in Nangarhar province, a suicide bomber in a car blew himself up at a police checkpoint, killing six people, including five civilians and one policeman, said police spokesman Gafor Khan. The blast also wounded four civilians and a policeman at the security post set up to search cars entering Chaparhar district for the new year celebrations, he said.
Afghan police, who have less training and fewer weapons than Afghan soldiers, often bear the brunt of insurgent attacks.
Richard Holbrooke, the American envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said yesterday that a new US strategy for the war in Afghanistan would focus on improved recruitment and training of the country's national police force.
He said a larger police force will free up NATO and US troops to concentrate solely on military actions to help stabilize Afghanistan. The NATO fatality in the country’s south occurred Friday, the same day four Canadian troops serving with the NATO-led force were killed in two separate explosions, the alliance said.
