PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A roadside bomb destroyed a car carrying nine people to a wedding in northern Afghanistan Sunday, killing everyone inside including a child, the provincial governor said.
The previous day, six civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in the southern province of Helmand and six died after an air strike by foreign forces in mountainous eastern Kunar, according to local officials.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government. The insurgency is spreading rapidly in previously peaceful areas such as the north, and civilian and military casualties have risen to record levels.
Sunday's explosion in Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, which lies on the main highway connecting Kabul to the north, killed six women and two men along with the child, said provincial governor Abdul Majid.
In Kunar, three children were among the dead in the airborne attack on two houses in the Kodagai area which straddles the province's Dangam and Shigal districts, Sultan Sediqi, a member of the provincial council, told Reuters.
"NUMEROUS" INSURGENTS KILLED --ISAF
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that an air raid in Dangam had killed "numerous" insurgents after they were identified as an imminent threat to ground forces. It was not clear if this was the incident referred to by Sediqi.
When asked about the allegations of civilian casualties, an ISAF spokeswoman said they had not carried out any operations in Shigal and those killed by the air operation in Dangam had been "positively identified as insurgents."
Civilian casualties have frequently caused friction between President Hamid Karzai's government and Western military forces.
A recent string of attacks around the country has helped to dispel expectations of a winter lull in fighting. While insurgents normally target Afghan and foreign troops, civilians are often caught in the crossfire.
The roadside bomb in the violent Sangin district of Helmand province killed six people Saturday, the provincial governor's spokesman, Dawood Ahmadi, said Sunday.
Sangin is one of the main battlefields in the intensifying fight between Afghan and NATO-led forces on one side and the Taliban on the other, in the group's southern strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Saturday, Afghan and foreign forces killed 13 insurgents in the Nerkh district of Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, the provincial governor's office said. Three more were killed in a joint operation Sunday, it said.
The United Nations has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded from January to October last year -- up 20 percent from 2009.
A record 711 foreign troops were also killed in 2010, according to monitoring website www.iCasualties.org. The government says 1,292 Afghan police, 821 Afghan soldiers and 5,225 insurgents were killed.
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