[Dawn] A station wagon packed with Afghan civilians struck a roadside kaboom in western Afghanistan, triggering an kaboom that killed 16 people, 11 of them children, Afghan officials said.The vehicle was traveling in Herat
...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns...
province's Shindand district when it hit the bomb, said Mohammad Salim, the police garrison chief for the district. Anothr four people in the car were maimed, he said.
Those in the car were part of the same extended family, Salim said. He did not provide further details. Provincial front man Muhiuddin Noori confirmed the casualty figures.
Civilians have been the overwhelming victims of the rise in violence in Afghanistan this year. While civilian deaths attributed to NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
forces have decreased, an increase in roadside kabooms and jihad boy attacks means that the overall number of civilians dying has increased.
The blast in Herat happened on the same day that a jacket wallah in the south of the country rammed an explosives-packed vehicle into a police truck, killing two civilians.
The attacker in the southern city of Lashkar Gah, the main city in Helmand...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province, apparently was waiting in the car at the gates of the police headquarters just outside a bakery where officers regularly buy bread in the morning, said the deputy provincial police chief, Kamaluddin Sherzai.
The bomber then slammed into a police truck that was parked at the shop, triggering the bomb, he said.
Two civilians _ one man and one young boy _ were killed in the blast, said provincial government front man Daoud Ahmadi. Another 26 people were maimed, including 10 coppers and six children, he said.
Taliban front man Qari Yusef Ahmadi grabbed credit for the Lashkar Gah attack.
Hours earlier, the Taliban released a formal statement rejecting claims that the insurgency has become splintered or that the group or any of their allies have ties to the Pak government.
The statement said the Taliban insurgency "is at its strongest and unified more than it has been at any other stage," and denied that the movement has bases in Pakistain.
The claim runs contrary to US and international assertions that the Taliban retain numerous safe havens and bases in Pakistain's tribal areas, used to stage attacks into neighboring Afghanistan.
The Taliban also reject US charges that the Haqqani network, a key affiliate, has ties to Pakistain's intelligence service.
The group says Haqqani network founder Jalaluddin Haqqani is a key member of the Taliban leadership.
The Taliban statement appeared to be an attempt to give the Pak government some breathing room as Islamabad comes under increasing pressure to take action against snuffies within its borders.
In the wake of three major attacks in the Afghan capital in the past two weeks, US officials have ramped up their public comments alleging the Pak government backs the Haqqani network, which is believed to be behind a number of attacks in and around Kabul.
The Afghan government, meanwhile, has upped its protests against cross-border artillery attacks it blames on Pakistain.
On Monday, the Afghan government said that Afghan-Pakistain relations will suffer if the attacks in eastern Afghanistan continue.
A NATO forces front man said Monday that the Haqqani network is still very much operating out of Pakistain.
"We have no credible intelligence indicating that the Haqqani network has eliminated their operating safe havens in Pakistain," said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a front man for NATO forces in Afghanistan. "They continue to plan and execute operations from across the border."
In Kabul, meanwhile, tensions between different political factions were on the rise as hundreds of demonstrators, led by former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, accused the government of mishandling the investigation into last week's killing of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani
... the murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan...
Saleh told the assembled group that international officials should investigate the liquidation rather than the Afghan government. He said that he did not trust Afghan officials to conduct an honest investigation.