A bus carrying Afghans working for a US-supported demining group was struck by a roadside bomb in Kandahar Province yesterday, killing five workers and wounding 13 others.
Also yesterday, NATO said an Afghan soldier shot and lightly wounded a Polish soldier with whom he had been arguing. The Afghan soldier fled after the shooting and was being sought by Afghan and international forces.
The bus belonging to the Demining Agency for Afghanistan was struck early yesterday as it traveled through Daman District, said Mohammed Ibrahim, chief of medicine at Kandahar Hospital.
Roadside bombs are a signature weapon of the Taliban in their struggle against foreign forces and the Afghan government, but more often kill Afghan civilians. It wasn’t clear if the blast was random or specifically targeted the demining agency, known as DAFA, which receives more than half its funding from the US State Department, according to its Web site.
The group clears mines across southern Afghanistan that are a legacy of 25 years of near-continuous warfare and continue to kill scores of Afghans each year.
The unidentified Pole shot Saturday night at a joint command center in the eastern province of Ghazni was transferred to a medical facility for treatment, according to a NATO spokesman in Kabul, speaking on routine condition of anonymity.
The Ghazni base is headquarters of the 2,600 Polish troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the NATO effort to root out Taliban remnants and extend the central government’s remit into rural areas.
While rare, Afghan troop attacks on international forces risk damaging the trust between Afghan police and soldiers who work side-by-side with their foreign mentors on training and combat missions. In the latest and most serious incident, a rogue policeman in Helmand Province shot and killed five British soldiers.
Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the shooting resulted from an argument between the two men, but details weren’t immediately known. He said both had pulled weapons and fired, but only the Polish soldier was wounded. The whereabouts of the Afghan soldier weren’t known and it was possible he was hiding somewhere on the base, Azimi said.
“It seems to have been a fight and the soldier was operating on his own,” Azimi said.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the Afghan soldier had escaped, killing four Afghan solders in the process and was now with the insurgents. The claim could not be verified and the Taliban has a history of making false and exaggerated claims.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Taliban insurgents yesterday to lay down their arms and air their grievances while visiting Kunduz Province, adding that foreign forces would not leave the country as long as fighting continued.
Addressing a gathering, Karzai repeated his standing invitation to meet with any insurgent who renounces violence and terrorism and embraces the Afghan Constitution.
Karzai’s outreach has so far done little to stem the violence, while sometimes confusing efforts to decisively defeat opponents.
“Come, no one will stop you. Come and have your say, not by the gun,” Karzai said.
“You say that ‘foreigners are here.’ As long as you fight, they won’t leave,” he said, refering to the insurgents main goal of driving foreign forces from the country.
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