Six civilians Killed in attack aimed at US forces in Afghanistan
Pakistan Times Staff Report

KABUL (Afghanistan): Suspected militants attacked a US-led military convoy with rockets and machine guns near Afghanistan's capital Kabul, missing their target but killing six civilians, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the ousted Taliban said militants from the group carried out the attack late Monday and another in the east of the country on Tuesday which officials said killed a policeman.

Three other civilians were wounded in the attack on the convoy travelling about 45 kilometres (28 miles) southeast of Kabul in Logar province, interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.

"Six of our countrymen were killed and three others were wounded," he said.

The Target

The target was a vehicle of the US-led coalition force in Afghanistan, he said. Afghan police had sealed off the area and were looking for the attackers.

The coalition said an improvised bomb had hit the last vehicle in a US convoy in the province. "They moved out of the area immediately," spokeswoman Sergeant Marina Evans said.

"The IED (improvised explosive device) or some subsequent action must have caused the civilian casualties," she said.

A Taliban spokesman Mohammad Anif, said to a foreign news agency by telephone: "We attacked a US convoy in Logar. There was an exchange of fire -- we retreated." He could not comment on casualties.

Anif said Taliban fighters had also carried out an ambush on police in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

A policeman was killed and two others were wounded, Nangahar provincial police spokesman Ghafoor Khan said.

Logar has seen little of the insurgency-linked violence plaguing eastern and southern Afghanistan, once the powerbase of the Taliban regime that has been trying to topple the new government since it was ousted in a US-led attack in 2001.●