The FINANCIAL — A roadside bomb attack claimed by the Taliban killed at least 12 and wounded 29 in western Afghanistan’s main city on August 3. The remote-controlled bomb may have been aimed at a local police chief, as the security officials said.
The attack happened in a busy neighborhood in Herat as children where on their way to school, The New York Times reported. Two police vehicles were caught in the explosion after a bomb in a trash bin exploded, apparently set off by remote control, police officials said.
“Unfortunately 12 people, among them two police officers, a school girl and women were killed and 29 others were wounded” said Noor Khan Nikzad a police spokesman, according to the same source.
The attack appeared to be aimed at Mohammad Issa, the police chief for nearby Injil district, Raouf Ahmedi, a police spokesman, told The Associated Press. Mr. Issa was being transferred to a NATO-run hospital in critical condition, he said.
AFP gives information that a doctor at the city's main hospital said 29 wounded had been admitted as well as 12 bodies. "The condition of some of the wounded is not good," Barakatullah Mohammadi said.
The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, said insurgents attacked a police checkpoint in the old city of Baghlan to the north of the country on August 2. Eight militants and two police died in the ensuing gunbattle, the ministry said in a statement on August 3, as AP reported. The violence in the comparatively calm cities of Herat and Baghlan highlighted the volatile situation across the country as Afghanistan braces for presidential and local elections later this month.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, according to AFP. The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamist militia, have carried out multiple bombings as part of an insurgency that is now the bloodiest since they were overthrown in late 2001 by a US-led invasion.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called for peace talks with the Taliban, including the group's leader, Mullah Omar, as reported VOA news. But Omar has rejected these offers, saying no dialogue can take place until all foreign troops are out of the country.
According to the same source, July was the deadliest month for international forces since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, with at least 75 coalition troops killed, mostly in the south and the east of the country.
The New York Times gives information that two factors have made this summer especially deadly. One was President Obama’s decision to send 21,000 additional troops to the country, including a Marine expeditionary brigade now conducting operations in Helmand Province, one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan.
The other factor is the guerrillas’ increasing skill at using improvised explosive devices, the military’s nomenclature for homemade bombs, according to the same source. The bombs are often made from fertilizer and diesel fuel, or from artillery shells, and buried in dirt roads with triggers set to detonate when heavy military vehicles drive over them.
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