Mirwais Afghan, Reuters  --  Arab News

KANDAHAR, 15 April 2004 — A bomb exploded near a US military base in southern Afghanistan yesterday, wounding a policeman, and several Afghan officials were killed in separate attacks linked to Taleban militants.

Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the militants ambushed and shot dead the deputy chief of Mizan district and several of his colleagues in southern province of Zabul. Provincial officials could not immediately be reached to confirm the report.

Hours earlier, a bomb exploded in front of a US military base further to the south in Kandahar city, wounding a senior Afghan police official and two of his bodyguards in an attack that police blamed on the ousted Taliban militia.

The blast was the first in several months in Kandahar, a former Taleban stronghold, and followed sporadic rocket attacks over the past three nights around Kandahar province which caused minor damage but no casualties. The Taleban also claimed responsibility for killing two Afghan civilians on Tuesday night for allegedly spying for the US forces in central Uruzgan province where US and Afghan troops have launched an offensive to uproot the militants.

And in Barmal district of eastern Paktika province, officials said suspected Taleban fighters had executed seven Afghans, including five government officials, a woman and child in an attack on Monday.

Driven from power by US-led forces in late 2001, the Taleban have declared a jihad, or holy war, on foreign and Afghan government troops and aid organizations, and threatened this week to step up attacks against the government and foreign troops.

Interior Minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, said he did not believe the spate of attacks reflected a coordinated offensive.

“They look for targets of opportunity and they hit. Sometimes there is a surge in their activity and sometime it is quiet,” he said.

Since August last year, about 650 people have been killed in violence blamed mainly on the resurgent Taleban.

In the bomb blast in Kandahar city, the explosion ripped through a car carrying Gen. Salim Khan on a road in front of a base of the US military’s Provincial Reconstruction Team. “The Taleban did it,” Khan told Reuters from a hospital where he was treated for face and hand injuries.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams usually consist of about 60 soldiers involved in military and civilian projects. Dozens of civilians were killed and wounded in Kandahar city in a bomb blast in January that authorities also blamed on Taleban fugitives.

About 30 Taleban suspects were arrested in Shah Wali Kot district of Uruzgan province as hundreds of Afghan soldiers backed by US soldiers searched the area for the bodies of the two civilians killed on Tuesday night.

“We have not managed to find the bodies, but have arrested 30 Taliban suspects in the operation,” said Roozi Khan, police chief of Uruzgan province.

Meanwhile, a suspected senior ally of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and five of his followers have been arrested in Kabul, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced yesterday.

The militants, described as a “threat” to Afghans and foreigners, were held in a joint raid by peacekeepers and local forces at a compound in the capital’s Charasyab district on Tuesday, ISAF spokesman Commander Chris Henderson said.

“The principal subject of the raid is believed to be a senior commander of Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin,” Henderson told a news conference, referring to Hekmatyar’s group. He did not identify the man by name.