RAHIM FAIEZ
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suspected U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan near its border with Pakistan killed two people, Pakistani intelligence said Saturday, as a Taliban suicide bomber killed a police officer in the country’s south.
The drone strike struck near Margha, across the border from Pakistan’s Datta Khel, a town in the North Waziristan tribal area where the U.S. has carried out previous drone attacks targeting militants, the officials said.
The Pakistani officials did not elaborate and Afghan officials did not immediately comment on the strike. The CIA typically carries out such strikes in Pakistan’s tribal region and does not comment on the attacks, which have stirred anger in Pakistan over civilian casualties.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to publicly brief journalists.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform killed an officer and wounded three at the police headquarters in Lashkhar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, local police spokesman Fared Obiad said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to media. The Helmand provincial capital was also the scene of a Taliban suicide car bombing on Wednesday that targeted a former police chief but killed five other people.
Also Saturday, gunmen opened fire and killed the two truck drivers in eastern Khost province, said Mubariz Mohammad Zadran, the spokesman for the provincial governor.
Also in the same province, the governor’s office said two police officers and one civilian were killed in the provincial capital, Khost, when a bomb-rigged bicycle was detonated by remote control on Friday. Three policemen and another civilian were wounded in that attack.
In other reports, three civilians died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in southern Uruzgan province, said Dost Mohammad Nayab, spokesman for the provincial governor. Eleven people were also wounded in that explosion, which occurred in Chora district late on Friday afternoon.
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Khost and Uruzgan.
The attacks reflect the militants’ persistent campaign against the Western-backed Afghan government, which last month signed a security deal with the United States and a separate agreement with NATO allowing over 10,000 foreign troops to train and advise Afghan forces after the international combat mission ends at the end of the year.
More than a decade after U.S. forces helped topple the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Afghanistan is still at war with the Islamic militant group, which regularly carries out attacks, mainly targeting security forces.
Separately Saturday, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported five Afghan nationals killed in Syria fighting against the militant Islamic State group were buried in the holy Shiite city of Qom. The agency did not elaborate.
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Khan reported from Islamabad.
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