Two people have been arrested here over Tuesday’s twin bomb blasts, which killed at least 15 people and 12 people have died in an ambush, blamed on Taliban militants. Kandahar deputy sheriff police chief Salim Khan said that one man was arrested in connection with the initial explosion, which caused no injuries and another man was being held in relation to the second blast.
| I wonder if this is the guy they caught running away... |
In a separate incident on Wednesday, 12 people from the ethnic Hazara group were killed in an ambush in the southern provinces, a local official said, adding that Taliban militants may have been behind the incident. "A minibus which was on its way from Uruzgan to Helmand was attacked by unknown armed men, who fired on the vehicle," Helmand district security police chief Abdul Rahman Sabir said. "In this incident, 12 passengers were killed and one passenger survived." Sabir said that the survivor managed to get to Baghran district just inside the Helmand province to inform authorities. "The investigation is going on but we think probably it was terrorists and Taliban who are trying to inflame ethnic differences between Hazaras and Pashtuns, that’s why they have attacked Hazaras," he said. The incident took place in the Al Akhor area on the border between south-central Uruzgan and Helmand province to the south. The bombings are the latest in a string of violent incidents in Kandahar.
| The Hazaras are also Shiites. And Lashkar e-Jhangvi members like hanging around in Afghanistan... |
Tuesday’s attack occurred outside a customs house and near the barracks of an Afghan commando unit, working with US forces to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. A gunfight broke out on the streets of Kandahar on Wednesday morning between members of this commando unit, witnesses said. US soldiers moved in to stop the fighting but there was no immediate information on the number of casualties.
| "Yar! We be commandos! Don't nobody be screwin' wid us, not even us!" |
A grenade was thrown at the office of non-government organisation Core on Tuesday, but it caused no injuries, local police said. Meanwhile, Afghan authorities have arrested 11 people over a December 28 suicide bombing near the Kabul International Airport, which killed six people, including the city’s intelligence chief. |