Four children die in Afghan blast

AP

MOTHER WEEPS: Four children were killed and many injured, when a mine exploded in Afghanistan.

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An explosion tore through a group of children gathered around foreign soldiers visiting a US-funded road project, killing four children and a policeman and wounding many more.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement that the blast in Nangrahar province in Afghanistan's east occurred when a passing police vehicle hit a mine. The ministry called it a terrorist act, implying the mine had been planted by insurgents.

Adjman Pardes, chief of the province's health department, said four children and a policeman died. He also said that 81 people, the vast majority of them schoolchildren, were wounded.

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said the wounded included three US soldiers. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said nine of its soldiers were wounded, but could not specify their nationalities.

Abdulzai said the soldiers were visiting a road construction project funded by the United States.

The blast occurred as children were heading home from school - many Afghan elementary schools work on three shifts a day, with the first beginning in the early morning.

Children frequently cluster around troop contingents, excited by curiosity and the hopes of receiving small treats.

In a separate attack in the province, four Afghan policeman were killed when a remote-controlled bomb blew up their vehicle in the Khagyani district, Abdulzai said.

Also on Wednesday, at least 15 people were injured in an explosion at a market in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan.

The blast occurred outside a shop in Khost city selling mobile telephones and music cassettes - the Taliban oppose most forms of secular music and Sabari speculated the insurgents chose the shop as a target for that reason.

The deaths of civilians, especially children, are an increasingly sensitive issue in the Afghanistan conflict. On Wednesday, the independent human rights watchdog group Afghanistan Rights Monitor said more than 1050 children under 18 died last year in war-related incidents.

- AP