Daily Security Brief: July 14, 2011

BAGHLAN: A roadside blast ripped through a car carrying officials of a private bank in Pul-i-Khumri, the capital of northwest Baghlan province, injuring two occupants, an official said on Thursday.

The blast occurred at 11:30 am in front of the municipality compound, targeting the car of Bakhtar Bank Puli Khumri branch’s president. The bank branch’s president was not in the car, said police spokesman Javed Basharar. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital, he said. An investigation has been lunched into the incident.

The injured men were between 20 and 23 years of age and are in stable condition, said Dr. Nasir, a doctor on duty at the Puli-i-Khumri civil hospital.

— Habib Rahman Shirzad

CHAMAN, PAKISTAN and Pakistan, officials said Thursday.

The blast took place late Wednesday night in the home of Afghan refugees in the Bai Pas area. Most of the victims were women and children, Abdullah Khan, a police officer, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The injured people were taken to the hospital, and an investigation has been launched, he said.

The police officer said that two people had been killed and 12 others injured in the blast. But a doctor at the area civil hospital, Akhar Mohammad Alizai, said that two of the injured died of their wounds at the hospital.

— Hijratullah

KABUL) soldier was killed in militant attack in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a brief statement Thursday.

In line with its policy, ISAF neither released the nationality of the fallen soldier nor the exact location of the incident, but mostly American and French soldiers deployed in the eastern parts of the country.

On Wednesday, five international soldiers were killed in the Tagab district of central Kapisa province as a result of a suicide attack near force’s base.

With the death of the soldier on Thursday, foreign fatalities reached 306 soldiers since the beginning of this year in different parts of the country. Last year 711 foreign soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

KANDAHAR: Maulvi Council, was killed in a suicide blast in Kandahar at around noon Thursday. At roughly the same time, one civilian was killed and two injured when a roadside blast hit a police patrol in the Loya Wyala area of the ninth district of Kandahar City. 

Two others were killed and another 15 people injured in the first explosion. The attacker entered a mosque hosting a prayer gathering for the slain brother of President Hamid Karzai and detonated explosives strapped to his body, the governor’s spokesman, Zalmay Ayubi, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

See Pajhwok’s story on the prayer ceremony suicide blast, and Pajhwok’s story on the roadside bomb attack.

— Bashir Ahmad Naadem

KHOST: Six people including women and children were killed and two others injured during a joint operation in the southeastern province of Khost, residents and officials said on Thursday.

Thousands of people protested against the operation and carried the dead bodies to the offices of the governor and the provincial council.

The International Joint Command media office denied accounts of civilian casualties, saying ISAF and Afghan forces had targeted Haqqani fighters in a joint operation.

See Pajhwok’s story. 

— Mali Khan Yaqubi

LOGAR: Two civilians were detained and a third was bitten by a military dog in the central province of Logar, officials said on Thursday.

The head of the district development council, Mohammed Naem, told Pajhwok Afghan News that International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops conducted a Wednesday night operation targeting two houses in the Pangram area of Charkh district.

He ISAF soldiers detained two teachers and that their dog bit the legs of a 45-year-old man. The injured man was taken to clinic and was discharged after treatment, district clinic doctor Abdul Jamil said.

— Maqsud Azizi

KABUL: Intelligence operatives have detained four suspects in connection with the killing of government employees in southern Kandahar province, the spy service said on Thursday.

The National Directorate of Security said in a statement that the detainees included Abdul Qadir, Khudai Nazar, Ahmadullah and Salih Muhammad, residents of the Loya Wyal area in Kandahar. The men were arrested in the ninth police district of Kandahar city.

Without releasing the detainees’ nationalities, the statement said the arrested people had long been at war against the government and involved in terrorist attacks.

The detainees had confessed to their crimes in initial investigation, the statement said.  They told interrogators that they had joined the Taliban employee.

—Zarghona Salehi

The incident occurred Wednesday evening in the Geri region of Khogyani district.

Khogyani district chief Mohammad Hassan said those killed were residents of the Kamboi region of the district. Their bodies have been recovered by the police and no one has yet been arrested, he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said that two vehicles belonging to US forces had been destroyed in a Taliban attack in the Khogyani district.

—  Abdul Mueed Hashimi

URUZGAN: Three militants were killed during a clash with Afghan and international troops in central Uruzgan province, officials said on Thursday.

The incident took place late Wednesday night in the Gulzar area of Chora district, when militants opened fire on an Afghan and international patrol, Col. Ahmad Gul, the district police chief told, Pajhwok Afghan News.

No Afghan or foreign soldiers suffered casualties in the incident, he said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the incident.

— Omaid Khpalwak

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