Four Afghan civilians and three policemen were killed on Thursday by two separate roadside bombs aimed at police convoys, police said. A remote-control bomb hit the convoy of a border police commander on the outskirts of western Herat city as he drove to the airport, provincial police chief Mohammad Shafiq Fazli said. “Four civilians were martyred and the border police commander Mohammad Ayob Safi and his two bodyguards were wounded in the bomb blast,” Fazli said, adding the commander was the target of the device. In a similar incident in restive southeastern Khost province, a roadside blast hit a police vehicle in a crowded local market, said Qasim Jan, the secretary to the provincial governor. “Three police were martyred and one was wounded” in the attack in Sabari district, Jan said. The blast shattered the windows of nearby cars and shops but did not cause any civilian casualties, he added. Provincial governor Arsala Jamal and other officials had been due to visit the district to inaugurate a newly built school, but the event was cancelled after the blast, Jan said.
