4 Afghan children dead in Taliban car bombings

Four children were among seven Afghans killed Saturday by two suicide car bombings in the country's volatile south, including one against police and soldiers collecting their pay. In Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, one blast struck near a bank where Afghan security personnel were receiving their wages a few days before Eid, the Islamic festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. It killed four people including three children and wounded 21 in a city where Afghans took control of security from British troops last month as foreign forces started withdrawals across the country. Around the same time, a second suicide car bomb targeting a police checkpoint in the city of Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace, left three civilians including a child dead. The Taliban, who frequently target the security forces, claimed responsibility for both. "The martyred were two small boys, a small girl and a middle-aged man," a statement from the Helmand governor's office said of the Lashkar Gah attack. "The target of the attack was police and army soldiers who gathered in front of Kabul Bank to take their monthly salaries." Ismail Khan, an official at Lashkar Gah police headquarters, said a seven-year-old girl was among the dead. Along with the dead, 21 people were wounded -- ten Afghan soldiers, five policemen and six civilians, the governor's office added. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring province of Kandahar, three civilians including a child were killed by a car bombing at a police checkpoint. "An explosive-laden car targeted a security checkpost but exploded before reaching its target, resulting in the death of three civilians including one child and the injury of 11 civilians," an interior ministry statement said. It added that this attack came moments after yet another suicide car bomber struck nearby, wounding 11 people including two police. Local officials said a large number of children were among the wounded. Both sets of attacks were strongly condemned by President Hamid Karzai in a statement released by his office. Southern Afghanistan, traditionally a Taliban stronghold, has long been the focus of international troop operations which the NATO-led foreign force says have made significant gains. However, militant attacks are still frequent and civilians are the biggest victims of the ten-year, Taliban-led insurgency. Figures released last month by the United Nations showed the number of civilians killed in the first half of the year in the Afghan war rose 15 percent. Insurgents were responsible for 80 percent of the deaths. The Lashkar Gah attack is the latest to strike the city since Afghan forces assumed formal responsibility for its security on July 20. The handover was part of the first wave of a transition process which will eventually see all foreign combat forces leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But some residents believe security has deteriorated since amid several recent attacks. These included a suicide car bombing on police headquarters which killed 12 policemen and a child in July and a macabre incident the day before the transition ceremony when seven police were poisoned and then shot dead by insurgents. Some local officials accuse the Taliban of deliberately trying to destabilise the city and spread fear in the wake of the transition process, the next phase of which Karzai is expected to unveil in late September or October. There are presently around 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan supporting Karzai's government, the majority from the United States.