Eleven killed in Afghan border bombings

Published on Saturday 21 March 2009 18:34

TWO separate bombings killed 11 people in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, the latest attacks near the country's volatile border with Pakistan.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Nato soldier was killed in a "hostile incident" in the country's south, the military alliance said yesterday.

A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up at a police checkpoint in Chaparhar district of eastern Nangarhar province. The incident happened when officers were searching cars, killing six people, including five civilians and one policeman, said a police spokesman Gafor Khan. The blast also wounded four civilians and a policeman, he said.

South of Nangarhar in Khost province, a bombing killed five people near a shrine as they celebrated the Persian new year, said the area's police spokesman. The blast on the outskirts of Khost city wounded five people, he said.

The Nato fatality occurred on Friday, the same day four Canadian troops serving with the Nato-led force were killed in two separate explosions, the alliance said. Yesterday's statement did not disclose the victim's nationality or the site of the incident.

Southern Afghanistan is the centre of the Taliban-led insurgency. Thousands of new US troops will soon be joining British, Canadian and Dutch forces trying to reverse gains by the Taliban and expand governance and security.

&#149 Taliban leader Mullah Muhammed Omar is not in Pakistan's south-western Baluchistan province and the US should not carry out missile attacks in the region, a senior official said.

Western and Afghan officials have long suspected that Omar and other members of the Taliban government ousted by the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 have found refuge in or near the city of Quetta, Baluchistan's capital.

Islamabad has challenged the US to provide it with any evidence of Omar's whereabouts, insisting Pakistani forces will immediately move against the fugitive Taliban chief.

It was reported last week that US officials were considering extending missile strikes into Baluchistan in pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders who have shifted from militant strongholds further north. But the head of the Baluchistan provincial government insisted Omar was not there.

"A person who is making war against the Nato forces, he must be present in Afghanistan, in (the Afghan province of] Kandahar or somewhere," Nawab Mohammed Aslam Raisani said. He added that "there is no justification for drone attacks in Quetta or other parts of Baluchistan."

Many Taliban and al-Qaeda militants sought sanctuary in Pakistan after the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and have been staging cross-border attacks.