Roadside bombs in Afghanistan killed eight civilians, including at least three women and a child, police said on Tuesday. Among the deaths was Zakaria Khan, an influential tribal elder who was killed Tuesday in an explosion in the southern province of Kandahar, said Zalmai Ayoubi, a provincial government spokesman. Khan, a pro-government tribal chieftain, died in his timber shop in the town of Spin Boldak on the Pakistan border, Ayoubi said. The blast appeared as if someone had thrown a hand grenade, he added.
Two other elders there were injured, he added. A remote-controlled bomb on a motorcycle parked on a bridge in the southern city of Ghazni detonated prematurely on Tuesday, killing two passers-by and wounding another five, including two children, police told AFP.
The blast took place just as a police convoy was about to pass, said Mohammad Osman, commander of Afghanistan's south-eastern police zone. "Two civilians were martyred and another five were wounded," he said. In a similar incident late Monday, a roadside bomb ripped through a civilian vehicle in Shindand district, in the western province of Herat, killing five civilians and injuring two, said Lal Mohammad Omarzai, the district chief. "Three women, a man and a child were killed and two other women were hurt," he said.