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1st LD Writethru: Roadside bomb kills 4 Afghan civilians

Xinhua, May 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

About four Afghan civilians were killed and five others wounded in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar on Tuesday, the provincial government spokesman said.

The explosion took place roughly at 7 a.m. local time after a minibus touched off an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) along a road between Daman and Shah Wali Kot districts, Samim Khpalwak told Xinhua.

"All nine adult male passengers aboard the vehicle were affected by the blast. The killed along the injured were shifted to a nearby hospital where some of the injured remained in critical condition," he said.

The spokesman blamed the enemies of Afghanistan, a term referring to Taliban militant group, for the attack.

The Taliban fighters have been using IEDs to target security forces but the lethal weapons also inflict casualties on civilians, according to military officials.

More than 3,540 civilians were killed and over 7,450 injured in 2015 as the violence spread in different places of the country last year, according to a report by the UN mission in the country released on mid-February.

Out of the casualties, 713 civilians were killed and more than 1, 650 injured in IED attacks last year, the report found. Enditem