Eight civilians killed in Afghanistan

KABUL - Seven civilians were killed in two explosions in central and northern Afghanistan, while one other was shot by a private security guard near the capital, officials said Saturday.

Two women, two children and two men were killed in Charkh district of the central province of Logar after their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb, a spokesman for Logar’s governor said.

In the neighbouring province of Wardak, a roadside bomb hit the convoy of a private security company in Sayed Abad district, Shahidullah Shahid, spokesman for the provincial governor, said.

There were no casualties among the convoy personnel, but a 31-year-old man was killed when the security guards opened fire on Hassan Khail village.

Following the incident, hundreds of angry villagers closed the main highway linking Kabul to southern provinces, the governor’s spokesman said.

Hundreds of vehicles were blocked on the Kabul-Kandahar road, one of the busiest in the country and the main supply line for NATO troops in the volatile southern region, he said, adding that authorities were negotiating with demonstrators to reopen it.

Separately, one civilian was killed and another was injured Saturday morning in an explosion in Khan Abad district of the northern province of Kunduz, Mohammad Razaq Yaqoubi, the provincial police chief, said.

The local villagers were watching a bird-fighting match in the district when the blast took place, Yaqoubi said. He blamed Taliban militants, who banned bird-fighting during their 1996-2001 reign, for the attack.

Civilian casualties rose around 30 percent during March-April, compared to the same period in 2009, the Interior Ministry said.

Taliban militants are blamed for the bulk of civilian killings in the country, but Afghan and NATO troops have also been responsible for many deaths in the past eight years. More than 2,400 civilians were killed in the conflict last year, according to the United Nations.