Six Afghans killed by roadside bomb blast: Nato

KUNDUZ: Six civilians, including two children, were killed when their rickshaw struck a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan on Thursday, the Nato alliance said.
Afghan police and coalition forces secured the area and were investigating the blast site in Kunduz province, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said, giving no further details.
It is the latest attack of the deadly Taliban insurgency that has gripped the country for the past nine years.
Afghan police earlier reported that a father and his young son were killed when a bomb blew up their car near the city of Kunduz.
“A father and his 10 or 12-year-old son who were driving to the city were killed,” deputy provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Aqtash told AFP.
He did not give details of any further injuries from the roadside blast.
It was unclear whether the incidents were the same.
A string of similar attacks have killed civilians in Afghanistan in recent weeks.
Separately, Isaf said it was investigating an incident in Lashkar Gah district of southern Helmand province, in which it said two Afghan civilians were accidentally killed and one injured.
According to initial reports an Isaf unit came under attack and returned fire at a van that it believed was part of the attack, an Isaf statement said.
Following the incident, Isaf forces found two dead civilians and one wounded civilian in the van. The wounded civilian was evacuated to an Isaf medical facility.
A human rights watchdog said Tuesday that 2010 was the deadliest year for ordinary Afghans since a US-led invasion, with more than 2,400 civilians killed.
Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for more than 60 per cent of the dead, the report by the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) said, blaming the US-led force for 21 per cent of the casualties.
The Taliban are battling 140,000 Nato-led international troops based in Afghanistan.
The troops are due to start a limited, conditions-based withdrawal from July and Afghan security forces are due to take control of security in their own country from 2014.