Rocket attack rocks northern Afghan city, killing 1

One civilian was killed and two others were injured after militants fired a rocket towards Pul-e-Khumri city, capital of Afghanistan's northern province of Baghlan on Monday, causing panic among the residents, the provincial governor said.

"The rocket fired by militants from outskirts of Pul-e-Khumri struck the courtyard of provincial governor office in the morning. The injured along the body were shifted to a hospital in the city," Governor Abdul Satar Bariz told Xinhua.

Several rounds of rockets and mortar shells have stricken the city over the past month as intense fighting between Taliban militants and security forces have been continuing in suburbs of the city, some 160 km north of Afghan capital of Kabul.

The killed was a visitor and among the injured were a government staff and an applicant, according to Bariz.

Earlier this month, the militants destroyed several power pylons in neighboring Dand-e-Shahabudin district, plunging Kabul to darkness over the past three weeks.

Some 3,545 civilians were killed and 7,457 injured as violence spread in different places of the country last year, according to a UN mission report released earlier this month.

The UN report has attributed 62 percent of the casualties to the Taliban and other insurgent groups, 17 percent were attributed to security forces while the rest 21 percent of civilian casualties were unattributed or caused by explosive remnants of war. Endit