Bomb targeted at police officers leaves seven children dead

AN INSURGENT bomb targeting Afghan police using a fresh water spring to replenish their drinking supplies has instead killed seven children grazing farm animals.

The bomb, which exploded on Tuesday, was planted next to a spring in the Taywara district of western Ghor province, said provincial police chief Dilawar Shah.

He said the spring was located in an area that has seen recent fighting between insurgents and police forces, and added that the children accidentally triggered the device as they were grazing cattle.

Mr Shah said the bomb was intended for security forces that use the same spring as a water supply.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing.

In other violence, the US military said that one of its service members was killed on Tuesday in western Afghanistan. A statement issued yesterday said the service member died 
of combat-related injuries.

• A soldier died after he triggered an improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan despite 26 of his colleagues walking across the same piece of ground before him, an inquest has heard.

A coroner heard how Rifleman Sheldon Steel, 20, 
of the 5th Battalion The Rifles, was the second-to-last in a line of soldiers on patrol in Helmand Province when the blast went off on 27 November last year.

The rifleman was on patrol in Babaji, in the Lashkar Gah district.