Roadside bombs kill 14 in Afghanistan: police

This file photo shows soldiers and villagers walking down a road in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, in 2011. Roadside bombs on Sunday killed 14 civilians travelling in two vehicles in Kandahar, close to the Pakistan border, according to police.
© AFP/File Romeo Gacad

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Roadside bombs killed 14 civilians travelling in two vehicles in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province close to the Pakistan border, police said.

“This morning a tractor and small truck hit roadside bombs in Arghistan district, killing 14 people and wounding three,” provincial police chief General Abdul Raziq told AFP on Sunday.

He blamed the attack on Taliban insurgents, hardline Islamists who have been waging a decade-long campaign to topple the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The deaths come a day after bomb blasts and a rocket attack in southern Afghanistan killed 11 civilians, including at least four children, in a space of 24 hours.

The attacks add to fears about security as NATO prepares to hand responsibility to Afghan forces and recall the vast majority of its 130,000 combat troops by the end of 2014.

Roadside bombs, which remain one of the Taliban’s weapons of choice along with suicide bombers and commando-style raids, are known to regularly kill civilians.

For the past five years the number of civilians killed in the war has risen steadily, reaching a record 3,021 in 2011 — the vast majority caused by insurgents, according to UN figures.