At least six people were killed Saturday when a Taliban bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into Afghan soldiers who had queued outside a bank in southern Helmand province to collect their salaries, officials said.
\nNearly two dozen others, including women and children, were wounded in the explosion in the capital Lashkar Gah, many of them critically.
\nThe Taliban, who control vast swathes of the opium-ravaged province and have repeatedly threatened to seize Lashkar Gah, claimed responsibility for the bombing, calling it revenge for recent US airstrikes in the volatile district of Sangin.
\n\u201cA suicide car bomber killed six people, including five soldiers, and 21 others were wounded,\u201d Helmand police chief Agha Noor Kentoz told AFP.
\nOmar Zhwak, the provincial governor’s spokesman, confirmed the casualties from the bombing, which upturned military vehicles and left the area strewn with charred debris.
\nThe Italian-run Emergency hospital in Lashkar Gah said it had received at least 12 people, including a woman and a child.
\nThe Taliban ruled out civilian casualties in a statement on their website, claiming that 21 Afghan army soldiers had been killed. The insurgents are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
\nThe attack comes after the US military this week stepped up airstrikes in Sangin as fierce fighting with the Taliban raised fears that the key district could fall to the insurgents.
\nNato on Friday said it was looking into local media reports of nearly a dozen civilian casualties from the strikes.
\n\u201cWhile supporting and defending Afghan troops, the US conducted airstrikes in Sangin district,\u201d the coalition said in a statement.
\n\u201cWe’re aware of the allegations of civilian casualties, and take every allegation very seriously. We’ll work with our Afghan partners to review all related material.\u201d For years Helmand was the centrepiece of the Western military intervention in Afghanistan only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability.
\nThe Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of the 14 districts in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and US troops over the past decade and blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency.
\nLashkar Gah \u2014 one of the last government-held enclaves \u2014 also risks falling to the Taliban’s repeated ferocious assaults. The intensified fighting in the province last year forced thousands of people to flee to Lashkar Gah from neighbouring districts.
\nThe Pentagon said last month it will deploy some 300 US Marines this spring to Helmand.
\nNato officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but the Marines will return to train and advise Afghan soldiers and police officers fighting the Taliban, said US Central Command.
\nThe decision was welcomed by the Afghan government ahead of what is expected to be another fierce spring fighting season.<\/p>\n
Source: Dawn news<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At least six people were killed Saturday when a Taliban bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into Afghan soldiers who had queued outside a bank in southern Helmand province to collect their salaries, officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n