Afghanistan endured yet another day of bloodshed on Saturday as three separate attacks resulted in the deaths of 19 people, among them a senior official at the Supreme Court, and a dozen people working to clear landmines.The attacks came a day after two American soldiers died when a suicide bomber attacked their convoy near Bagram Airbase. Their deaths took to 65 the total number of international troops to die in Afghanistan this year, 50 of them Americans.
In one of the attacks on Saturday, six Afghan soldiers died when a suicide bomber attacked a bus taking them home.
Hours earlier, Atiqullah Rawoofi, the head of the Supreme Court's secretariat in Kabul's northwestern suburbs, was walking from his home to his car on his way to work when he was shot dead by militants.
And in the south of the country, a dozen workers clearing mines were killed when the Taliban stormed their site between Nad Ali and Washir districts. Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. The non-profit Halo Trust estimates some 640,000 mines have been laid there since 1979 and at least 20,500 people have been killed and wounded by such ordinance since.
Mr Ghani condemned the attack on the mine-clearing personnel; an unusual step, given that he rarely makes public comments about violence, and prefers instead to visit bereaved families. The president said the attack on those working to clear mines was inhuman and un-Islamic.
"It's the work of the enemies of Afghanistan," he said in a statement.