Bomb kills Afghan general, drone kills 6 civilians

[ahlam1399]

ISLAMABAD: Officials in southern Afghanistan say a bomb explosion Saturday killed a senior military commander and wounded at least three other people, including a local journalist.Separately, an apparent drone attack in the southeast part of the country is said to have killed at least six civilians, including a newborn baby.The Taliban took responsibility for the roadside bombing in Helmand province, where most of the districts are either controlled or influenced by the insurgent group, international media reported.The provincial police spokesman said Gen. Zahir Gul Muqbil, the commander of an army border unit, was heading to the volatile Marjah district along with a group of journalists to visit an ongoing counterinsurgency operation when the convoy struck a roadside bomb.Mohammad Zaman Hamdard said the slain general was directing the military operation. He added three security personnel and a reporter with Afghanistan’s mainstream Shamshad TV were among the wounded. The journalist, Sardar Mohamad Sarwary, is said to have received multiple injuries.A Taliban statement said the attack also killed Muqbil’s two guards, though insurgent claims are often inflated. Helmand is Afghanistan’s largest province and a major opium-poppy producing region.Meanwhile, local politicians and officials in southeastern Khost province confirmed Saturday a recent suspected drone strike in their area had killed at least six civilians, including a newborn baby.A local tribal leader, Gul Marjan Farooqzoi, said the victims are members of the same family and were traveling back from a hospital in the provincial capital when missiles fired from a pilotless aircraft hit their vehicle and destroyed it. He said two women and two children, including the infant, were among the dead.Provincial government spokesman Talib Mangal confirmed that a vehicle had come under attack in the area “two days ago” but he shared no further details. Mangal said an investigation into the incident was still underway but he would not say whether the attack was carried out by Afghan forces or their international partners.Meanwhile, more than 24 armed Taliban insurgents were killed and 31 militants affiliated with the hardliner Islamic State (IS) outfit surrendered in the insurgency-battered Afghanistan during the last two days, officials claimed on Saturday.The security forces in crackdown on the Taliban hideouts killed eight armed insurgents in the restive Baraki Barak district of the eastern Logar province, said an army statement. Similarly, eight militants were reportedly killed and seven others injured in Taloka area of the northern Kunduz province as government forces kicked off operations early on Saturday, provincial government spokesman Esmatullah Muradi asserted.Meanwhile, Taliban militants executed three fighters of the rival Islamic State group in Khostak valley of Jarm district in the northern Badakhshan province on Saturday, Abdullah, a police officer in the troubled district, claimed.Disputing the claims, Taliban spokesman Zabihuallah Majahid in contact with media emphasized that dozens of security forces had been killed elsewhere in the country over the past 24 hours.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/25daLM6VpU0

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