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Violence Claims Nine More Lives in Afghanistan

Reuters

January 8, 2004

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least nine people were killed and four wounded in separate incidents of violence in southern and eastern Afghanistan , officials said on Sunday.

Five Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in clashes with drug smugglers on Saturday near a government post in a remote area of the province of Kandahar bordering Pakistan , Mohammad Anas, deputy governor of the province, said.

The troops were killed after they tried to stop the smugglers from trafficking drugs into Pakistan, a key export source for Afghan narcotics.

In another incident on Saturday, four Taliban were killed in a clash with Afghan troops in the province of Helmand while they were planting land mines on a road often used by government soldiers, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.

An elderly Afghan was wounded when a rocket landed near a U.S. military base in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday.

The shrapnel from the rocket pierced the roof and hit the man as he lay in bed, the city's police chief, Haji Ajab Shah, told reporters while witnesses said U.S.-led troops, using Jalalabad's airport as their base, have sealed off the site of the blast.

Violence, including twin bomb blasts on Tuesday in Kandahar, has killed 51 people and wounded several dozen in less than a week in southern Afghanistan, underlining growing insecurity.

More than 450 people including militants, Afghan troops, civilians, aid workers and more than 12 members of U.S.-led troops have been killed since August in violence largely blamed on the Taliban.