Blast in east Afghanistan kills 3 officials

An explosion occurred on Monday morning in Khogiani district of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan kills at least 3 local officials and injured 2 soldiers, police said.

The explosion occurred at around 10 a.m. when the district officials were on their way to check the situation of a school in Khawaran village, which was burned down by Taliban on Saturday night, said Salangi, provincial police chief of Nangarhar.

A roadside bomb blew up their car, causing 3 persons including the district chief, police commander and chief of the intelligence service department of the district dead, 2 Afghan soldiers injured, he added.

No one has claimed responsibility yet, but the Taliban has frequently carried out similar attacks before.

Due to rising Taliban-linked insurgence this year, Afghanistan has plunged into the worst spate of violence since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001.

Anti-government militants have conducted 78 suicide attacks in the post-Taliban Afghanistan over the past nine months, killing 195 people mostly civilians, spokesman of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Sunday.

Over 2,400 persons, mostly Taliban rebels, have been killed in various kinds of conflicts in this Central Asian country during the past nine months.

Source: Xinhua