Afghan, NATO soldiers, 3 children killed in blasts

KANDAHAR - Three children were killed and four other people injured when a bomb hidden in a donkey-drawn cart exploded in southern Afghanistan Monday, officials said.

In a separate incident, one Afghan soldier and one NATO service member were killed in an explosion at a training camp in the capital Kabul. Several other soldiers were injured.

The donkey-drawn cart involved in the bombing in the southern province of Kandahar had been abandoned in front a tribal chief’s residence in the centre of Kandahar city Monday afternoon.

It was then remotely detonated, said Zalmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Haji Fazelluddin, the former governor of Spin Boldak district and an influential tribal elder allied with President Hamid Karzai, was not hurt in the attack.

But three of his nephews, aged 12 to 14, were killed, Ayoubi said, adding that two police officers guarding the residence and two civilian passers-by were injured.

No group immediately took responsibility for the bombing, which came four days after a suicide bomber killed three Afghans and wounded two dozen people - including foreign contractors - in the centre of Kandahar city.

Separately Monday, the Afghan defence ministry announced that one of its soldiers was killed and three others injured in an explosion at an army training camp in the eastern part of Kabul.

The blast occurred during a military training exercise involving heavy artillery, the statement said.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) also said that a foreign soldier was killed and several others injured in the same blast. He did not disclose the nationalities of the victims.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, claimed that one of their bombers, Abdul Qahar, a resident of the northern province of Kunduz, carried out the attack during the military training, killing 10 Afghan and NATO soldiers.

He said the bomber had enrolled as a new army recruit to carry out the attack inside the training base.

Afghan and ISAF officials said they were investigating the incident.

Soldiers from several NATO countries, mainly from the US, have been training Afghan army troops since 2002. NATO countries plan to train up to 300,000 Afghan police and army forces by the summer of 2011, in a bid to transfer the security responsibility of the country to the indigenous forces.