KABUL: At least nine Afghan civilians were killed and five others injured after their vehicle touched off a roadside bomb in southern Kandahar province on Wednesday, police said.
According to a provincial police spokesman Jamal Barakzai, a passenger bus hit the improvised explosive device in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province. As a result, nine civilians were killed on the spot, while five others sustained severe injuries.
Jamal Barakzai said that the incident took place in the Arghistan district around noon local time when a passenger bus hit the improvised explosive device.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility; however, Afghan officials blame the Taliban for placing landmines on highways in a bid to target convoys of the security forces.
On Tuesday, a similar landmine blast in the restive northern Kunduz province killed at least seven farm labourers, an official had confirmed.
Blaming the Taliban, the governor’s spokesman Esmatullah Muradi said the incident took place in the Jungle Bashi area of Khan Abad district where an improvised explosive device planted by the Taliban hit a convoy of farm labourers.
Such landmines, mostly planted in areas controlled or contested by the Taliban continue to wreak havoc in the country accounting for some 30%, nearly 1,300, of total civilian casualties in the first three months of 2020, according to the report issued by United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
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