Afghan and foreign troops killed 14 Taliban insurgents and eight civilians died in a string of attacks, Afghan officials and the U.S. military said on Monday.
One U.S.-led coalition soldier was also killed in a roadside bomb attack on Monday. Violence has surged in Afghanistan, with some 3,800 people — a third of them civilians — killed by the end of July this year, the United Nations said.
Already more foreign troops have been killed so far this year than in any year since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Six civilians were killed and two more wounded when their minibus hit a roadside bomb in Zana Khan district of Ghazni province on Monday, a local official said.
“The roadside bomb was planted by insurgents who were targeting a foreign or Afghan military convoy using this road,” said the governor”s spokesman, Sayed Ismail Jahangir.
Separately, two civilians were killed and three wounded when a rocket landed on their home in Khost on Sunday, the provincial police chief said.
