Intelligence agents among 9 killed in Helmand

LASHKARGAH (PAN) Six security personnel and three civilians have been killed and 15 others, including 11 civilians, injured during separate incidents of violence in southern Helmand province, officials said on Saturday.

The officials who were killed in a roadside bombing in Sangin district on Friday included five National Security Directorate (NDS) and a local policeman, an intelligence official said.

A Sangin resident, Gulalai, said a woman was killed and eight children injured when a mortar shell hit their house. He said the injured brought to the Emergency-run hospital needed blood and they were trying to find donors.

Also on Friday, a bomb blast killed two civilians and injured another three civilians and as many policemen in the Marja town, provincial executive officer, Lal Mohammad Ahmadi, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Residents were busy buying food for iftari when the blast took place, he said.

A resident of the area, Abdullah, confirmed to Pajhwok Afghan News over the telephone the death of three civilians and injuries to another 13 people in the blast.

In Nad Ali district, a civilian was killed and a policeman wounded during a clash between police and Taliban fighters, the governor’s spokesman, Omar Zwak said.

A doctor at the Emergency-run hospital in Lashkargah confirmed receiving nearly a dozen people injured during separate incidents. They included five children, he said, adding one of the severely injured died at hospital.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, said eight Afghan soldiers were killed in the roadside bombing in Sangin. Another six troops were injured in the attack, he said, adding two police were killed in a grenade attack on the outskirts of Lashkargah.

mds/ma

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