Roadside bomb kills four civilians in Afghanistan

KABUL: A roadside bomb killed four civilians in Afghanistan’s southern province of Uruzgan on Friday, the provincial head of the crime investigation unit said.

“Four civilians were killed and one injured when their vehicle hit a Taliban-planted mine in Trinkot city this morning,” said Gulab Khan.

All the victims were male and the civilian who was injured was in a critical condition, he added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but roadside bombs are frequently planted by Taliban-led insurgents fighting a decade-long war against Nato-led foreign troops and Afghan government forces.

There are around 130,000 international troops, mainly from the United States, in Afghanistan helping government forces combat the insurgency.

The United Nations said the number of civilians killed in violence in Afghanistan rose by 15 per cent in the first six months of this year to 1,462, with insurgents blamed for 80 per cent of the killings.

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Afghan-Nato raids kill, capture Taliban commanders

KABUL: Nato says joint raids with Afghan forces have killed at least three and captured 11 Taliban commanders and facilitators who provided logistical support and weapons to insurgents.

Friday’s statement from the coalition says an operation earlier this week in Bakwah district in Farah province resulted in the killing of a senior insurgent leader and two of his commanders, as well as a ”number of additional insurgents.”

Early on Friday, Nato and Afghan troops captured 11 Taliban fighters or sympathizers in five separate operations across the country.

Nighttime kill-and-capture raids, in which a number of civilians have died, have become a flashpoint for anger over foreign meddling in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has demanded that foreign troops stop breaking into homes.

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Israeli Gaza air strike kills one, injures one: Palestinians

GAZA CITY: An Israeli air strike east of Gaza City on Friday killed one man and injured at least another, Palestinian medical officials told AFP.

The Israeli military said that the target was a group of men preparing to fire a rocket into Israel.

“Aircraft targeted a terrorist squad that was identified moments before firing rockets at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip. A hit was confirmed, thwarting the rocket fire attempt,” a military statement said.

“The aforementioned squad is responsible for the firing of rockets at Israel in the past number of days,” it added.

Palestinians named the dead man as Moamen abu-Daff, but did not immediately link him to a specific militant group.

Palestinian militants fired two rockets at southern Israel on Thursday, after Israeli warplanes attacked “terror sites” inside the Gaza Strip, the army said.

Both fell in open ground without causing injuries or damage.

Early on Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes targeted “terror sites” in central and northern Gaza in retaliation after rockets were fired across the border on Wednesday.

“Israeli air force aircraft targeted a terror activity site in the central Gaza Strip, and a terror tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip,” a military statement said, indicating it was a response after five rockets landed in Israel, none of which caused any damage or injuries.

Palestinian security sources said the air strikes hit a training ground used by Islamic Jihad militants near central Gaza and another training ground northeast of Gaza which belonged to Hamas’s armed wing, causing no casualties.

An earlier series of Israeli strikes overnight Tuesday had killed a Palestinian and wounded about 20 others, as the military struck what it described as “global jihad” targets who were planning cross-border attacks on southern Israel from the Egyptian Sinai.

On Wednesday, a senior Israeli officer said the military was preparing for a possible large-scale military campaign in Gaza if the Palestinians did not halt their rocket attacks.

“We are preparing and ready for an additional campaign… to renew the deterrence,” Tal Hermoni, commander of the Gaza division’s southern brigade, told reporters in remarks widely published in the Israeli press.

Israel’s last major operation against Gaza was Operation Cast Lead, a 22-day offensive launched on December 27, 2008 that cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians — at least half of them civilians — and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers.

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