Suicide attack, bomb, kill eight Afghans—officials

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—A suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed three policemen in a pre-dawn attack and five Afghan troops died in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan on Thursday, officials said.

The blasts came as Afghan forces take increasing responsibility for the fight against Taliban insurgents as US-led NATO combat troops prepare to pull out by the end of 2014.

The suicide attack came in Kandahar city in the south of the country while the soldiers died in Laghman province in the east.

“Around 5:00am (0030 GMT), a suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated his explosives at a police checkpost, leaving three Afghan policemen killed and two other wounded,” the provincial governor’s spokesman, Javed Faisal, told AFP.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but similar attacks have been claimed by Taliban Islamists fighting to bring down the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

The roadside bomb hit a pick-up truck carrying Afghan army soldiers, killing five and wounding one in Mehtarlam, the Laghman provincial capital, Sarhadi Zwak, the provincial governor’s spokesman, said.

In one of the worst recent attacks, a suicide bomber killed more than 40 people, including police and civilians, in a mosque in Maimana, provincial capital of Faryab in the north late last month.