Roundup: Over 160 killed in major attacks in Afghanistan in June

More than 160 Afghans, largely civilians, have been killed while nearly 280 others injured in major attacks in Afghanistan last month as Taliban militants escalate offensives after withdrawal of NATO-led forces from the country, according to official sources.

The Taliban militants carried out some 20 major bomb attacks throughout June, including six suicide bombings, involving 19 suicide attackers.

On Tuesday, June 30, the militants launched four massive bomb attacks across the country.

In one attack, two civilians were killed while 25 people, including two U.S. soldiers, were wounded as a Taliban suicide car bombing hit a NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission convoy in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

On the same day, two civilians and three suicide bombers were killed while 51 people wounded after the Taliban set off a truck bomb near a police station in Lashkar Gah, capital city of the southern Helmand province.

Two children were wounded in a sticky bomb attack in Kabul while a massive roadside bombing which occurred in western Kabul late Tuesday, caused no casualties.

The Taliban has intensified attacks over the past couple of months as the Afghan security forces assumed the full security responsibility from NATO-led troops since Jan. 1.

Nearly 13,000 foreign forces, now stationed in the country, are being involved in training and advising Afghan forces under the NATO-led mission.

The militants group also launched its so-called annual spring offensive in mid-April in different parts of militancy-plagued Afghanistan, which had claimed hundreds of lives, including militants, security personnel and civilians.

On June 22, two civilians and six suicide attackers were killed and over 30 people sustained injuries after Taliban attacked the parliament building in western Kabul with a massive suicide car bombing.

In addition to suicide bombings, about 11 roadside bomb attacks took place last month throughout the country.

Up to 19 civilians, including nine children, died and four civilians were wounded when a vehicle they were traveling touched off a roadside bomb in Marja district of Helmand on June 20.

On June 5, eight civilians lost their lives while 20 civilians sustained injuries in the eastern Ghazni province in a similar attack.

The Taliban militants also launched a string of massive attacks on security checkpoints and army outposts last month, killing and injuring scores of security forces.

Some 11 army soldiers were killed and six others wounded when the Taliban targeted a line of army trucks in western Herat province on June 28.

The exact number of casualties on the army and police last month remained unknown.

On June 12, about 17 police personnel were killed and three others injured after militants raided security checkpoints in Musa Qala district of Helmand province.

Helmand, notorious for poppy growing, is also a known Taliban stronghold.

More than a dozen government officials, security forces and local leaders had been killed in June as the militants carried out seven to eight targeted killings throughout the country.

In one targeted attack, Abdul Jabar Mosadiq, the governor of Kishim district of northern Badakhshan province, was killed in a suicide bombing, which also wounded four government officials.

In another attack, the militants killed nine aid workers of a government-run development project in relatively peaceful northern Balkh province on June 2.

More than 90 others were killed in separate attacks across the country last month.

About 150 people died and nearly 270 others injured in attacks in the militancy-hit country in May.

In the first four months of 2015, more than 970 civilians were killed and more than 1,960 others wounded in conflicts and Taliban- led attacks which showed a 16-percent increase over the same period last year, according to official figures released by the UN mission in the country.

The officials blamed the attacks on Taliban insurgents and other armed groups for vast majority of the civilian deaths and injuries. Endi