A bus carrying Afghans working for a US-supported demining group was struck by a roadside bomb in Kandahar province Sunday, killing five workers and wounding 13 others. Also Sunday, Nato said an Afghan soldier shot and lightly wounded a Polish soldier with whom he had been arguing.
The Afghan soldier fled after the shooting and was being sought by Afghan and international forces. The bus belonging to the Demining Agency for Afghanistan was struck early Sunday as it travelled through Kandahar province's Daman district, according to Mohammed Ibrahim, chief of medicine at Kandahar Hospital.
Roadside bombs are a signature weapon of the Taliban in their struggle against foreign forces and the Afghan government, but more often kill Afghan civilians. It wasn't clear if the blast was random or specifically targeted the demining agency, known as DAFA, which receives more than half its funding from the US State Department, according to its Web site.
The group clears mines across southern Afghanistan that are a legacy of 25 years of near-continuous warfare and continue to kill scores of Afghans each year.
The unidentified Pole shot Saturday night at a joint command center in the eastern province of Ghazni was transferred to a medical facility for treatment, according to a Nato spokesman in Kabul, speaking on routine condition of anonymity. Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the shooting resulted from an argument between the two men, but details weren't immediately known.