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Roadside bomb kills 3 civilians in southern Afghanistan | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) – A civilian vehicle struck a roadside bomb Saturday in southern Afghanistan, killing three passengers and wounding another, an official said.

The bomb hit the car in the Shahjoy district of Zabul province, in an area frequently patrolled by Afghan and international troops, Shahjoy district chief Qayum Khan said.

Khan accused the hard-line Taliban of planting the bomb and called it a “terrorist act.”

Another roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying police trainers from the American private security firm DynCorp near the Pakistan border, Spin Boldak border security commander Gen. Abdul Raziq Khan, said. No one was wounded in that attack.

In eastern Khost province, two suicide bomb attacks targeted international forces on Friday in Sabari district, but no one was hurt, Wazir Pacha, a spokesman for the provincial police chief, said.

Six years after the Taliban regime’s ouster, hostilities show little sign of easing. The fighting is most intense in the south.

More than 1,000 people, mostly militants, have died this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.

The latest violence comes a day after a roadside bomb attack on a patrol of Dutch soldiers killed the son of the Netherlands’ top military officer.

Lt. Dennis van Uhm, the 23-year-old son of Dutch military commander Gen. Peter van Uhm, was one of two Dutch soldiers killed Friday in the explosion in restive Uruzgan province, spokesman Lt. Gen. Freek Meulman said.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack.