[DAWN] A suicide boom-mobileer killed at least 11 members of the security forces and maimed more than 20 civilians near a police checkpoint in eastern Pashtun-infested Logar province in Afghanistan on Saturday, local officials said.The Taliban did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack and could not be reached for comment, but the holy warrior group carry out daily attacks on the country's army and police.
"The jacket wallah detonated his car near a residential area in Azra district of Pashtun-infested Logar, killing four army soldiers and seven local coppers," Din Mohammad Darwish a front man for Pashtun-infested Logar's governor said.
Violence has increased in Afghanistan over the past year as foreign troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.
The government is reluctant to release figures on casualties, but more than 4,000 police and soldiers were killed fighting Taliban holy warriors in 2013 and this year's toll is expected to be higher.
Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
, who took office about a month ago after months of destabilising deadlock over who won the election, said he hoped to achieve peace with the Taliban.
"Peace is not easy but is a mandatory," Ashraf Ghani told a news conference in Kabul on Saturday, two hours after the attack.
"If it was easy then it could be achieved during the past years."