Afghan soldiers injured by remote-controlled bomb

A remote-controlled bomb planted by suspected Taliban resurgents seriously injured five government soldiers in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, officials said yesterday.

The incident occurred Friday in the Shah Wali-Kot district, 65km north of Kandahar, when a convoy of five vehicles were traveling from the neighboring province of Uruzgan, said a police officer in Kandahar who asked not to be identified.

"All of [the soldiers] have seriously been injured," he said.

General Abdul Wasi, a military spokesman, confirmed the incident but declined to provide information about the casualties.

"We have arrested two suspected Taliban in the area after the incident," Wasi said.

A day earlier in Kandahar, a landmine suspected of being planted by Taliban resurgents to target US and Afghan troops killed three children and wounded another.

The attacks in Kandahar have occurred after a US air raid in Kandahar killed about 20 fighters of the fundamentalist Taliban militia, which once ruled most of Afghanistan. The dead reportedly included two important Taliban commanders, identified as Qari Faiz Mohammed and Qari Haji Mohammed.

Kandahar was once the main stronghold of the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The remnants of the Taliban toppled by a US-led military coalition in late 2001 have declared a holy war against foreign troops, aid workers and all those supporting US-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Meanwhile, US-led forces backed by warplanes fought militants near a remote US base on Afghanistan's unstable border, the US military said Friday, just across from a Pakistani region where suspected al-Qaeda fighters are believed to have found refuge.

The skirmish occurred Thursday near Shkin, a border town in Paktika province 220km south of the capital, Kabul, US military spokeswoman Master-sergeant Cindy Beam said.