Afghan official says blast kills 2 children and a policeman, wounds 3 US soldiers

Afghan official: blast kills 2 children

KABUL — Two Afghan children and a policeman were killed and at least three U.S. soldiers were wounded Wednesday when an explosion tore through a group of civilians and foreign service members in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement that the blast in Nangrahar province occurred when a passing police vehicle hit a mine. The ministry called it a terrorist act, implying the mine had been planted by insurgents.

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the spokesman for the provincial governor, told The Associated Press that 15 people were wounded, including three U.S. soldiers. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said nine ISAF soldiers were wounded, but could not clarify their nationalities.

Abdulzai said the soldiers were visiting a road construction project funded by the United States. He said two children and a policeman were killed.

Also Wednesday, at least 13 people were injured in an explosion at a market in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, said Amir Pacha Mangal, director of the provincial health department. Police were investigating the cause of the blast.

The deaths of civilians, especially children, are in an increasingly sensitive issue in the Afghanistan conflict. On Wednesday, the independent human rights watchdog group Afghanistan Rights Monitor said more than 1,050 children under 18 died last year in war-related incidents.

The group said about two-thirds of the young victims died at the hand of insurgents, including several murdered on suspicion of spying. But it also criticized Afghan and international forces, pointing particularly to the alleged deaths of eight children in an operation involving foreign troops last month in Kunar province.

NATO claims those killed in the operation were insurgents, but ARM said in a statement that it “appears to be an appalling act of crime against civilian people.”

Aside from outright killings of children, the insurgents are endangering countless others by “widespread and systematic attacks on aid workers, humanitarian convoys and facilities (that) deprived thousands of children from lifesaving services such as food aid and immunization against deadly diseases,” ARM said.

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah contributed to this report.