Four children killed in eastern Afghan roadside bombing

Kabul, Aug. 15 (Xinhua-ANI): Four children were killed and a man was wounded in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghan province of Paktika late Tuesday, a provincial government spokesman said Wednesday morning.

"A civilian car ran over a roadside bomb in Kharbin area of Yousuf Khil district at around 6 p.m. local time Tuesday and the blast killed four innocent children and injured a man," spokesman Mokhlis Afghan told Xinhua.

In a separate incident, a woman and her four children were injured when a rocket fired by Taliban insurgents hit a house in Saultano area of Sar Hawza district in Paktika province also Tuesday evening, he said.

In another development, 11 civilian workers were injured in a grenade attack near the entrance of a U.S. and NATO military base in Khost city, the capital of neighbouring Khost province earlier Wednesday, a police source said.

"The workers were waiting for access to the base but a man hurled a grenade and the injured were shifted to a provincial capital hospital where two of the injured were in critical conditions," the source told Xinhua.

Violence has been on the rise since Taliban launched an annual spring offensive on May 3.

The Taliban insurgent group has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.

Up to 60 people were killed and 160 others injured in a coordinated suicide attack in southwestern Nimroz and in a motorbike bomb explosion in northern Kunduz province on Tuesday.

A total of 1,145 civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflict-related violent incidents and attacks in the first six months of 2012, a 15 percent decrease in overall civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2011, according to a UN report released in capital Kabul on Aug. 8. (Xinhua-ANI)