Dozens of Taliban militants attacked a US-funded mine-clearing team in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing three deminers, three guards and one female passer-by, police said. The attack on the demining team working for the US-based demining company RONCO in western Farah province was the latest in a wave of violence blamed on the Taliban insurgents, police said. “The Taliban attacked a demining team. Three deminers and three guards supporting them were killed,” a highway police official, Saydo Jan told AFP. “One Afghan woman nearby was also killed in the shootout,” he said.Five other people nearby including three women were wounded in the attack in the province’s Bakwa district, the police official said, blaming the attack on Taliban militants active in the area.
Afghanistan is the worldÂ’s second most mined country, the result of years of war and insurgency. The crew were travelling to the western city of Herat from Taliban-dominated Kandahar when they came under attack.
In a separate incident on Saturday, US warplanes bombed a Taliban hideout, killing five militants in Zabul province. “The combined force used coalition close air support to drop munitions on the Taliban position. Secondary explosions killed the five Taliban fighters,” the United States military said in a statement. It said a weapons cache in nearby caves was also destroyed in the bombardment. It did not give details.