Kabul: Twenty people, including 12 Taliban militants, were killed in the latest insurgent violence in Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.
A helicopter belonging to US-led coalition troops was shot down by small-arms fire south of the Afghan capital yesterday, but there were no serious injuries to those on board, the US military said.
The pilots landed the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter safely and evacuated all personnel before it caught fire in the Kharwar district of Logar province, where Taliban militants are known to be active.
"Coalition forces cleared the area using helicopters, show-of-force and firing warning rounds before using precision-guided munitions to destroy the helicopter," the US military said.
It was the second coalition helicopter to crash in a week. The other incident in Kunar province in the northeast, is under investigation, but indications are that the helicopter crashed due to mechanical failure, a US military spokesman said.
The Taliban have brought down a number of aircraft, but so far the militants are not thought to have obtained surface-to-air missiles that could alter the balance of the war dramatically.
Governor escapes
Five people were killed yesterday in a suicide attack targeting the governor of the western province of Nimroz, who escaped unhurt.
Governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad said he was on his way back from inspecting a road construction project in the provincial capital Zaranj when a suicide attacker jumped over his convoy and detonated explosives strapped to his body.
"Three of my bodyguards and two civilians were martyred," he said shortly after the incident. Azad survived a similar attack last month, which the Taliban claimed responsibility for.
In southern Afghanistan, two policemen were killed when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle late Tuesday in Lashkar Gah, the capital of troubled Helmand province, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.
"Two policemen were martyred and seven others were wounded in the blast," Andiwal said. A spokesman for the Taliban, Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Separately, four insurgents were killed as a roadside bomb they were planting went off in Andar district of Ghazni province overnight, an interior ministry press statement said.
"Four enemies of Afghanistan were killed and two were wounded by the their own bomb they were planting," the statement said, raising an earlier toll by provincial authorities.
In other violence, Taliban militants ambushed an Afghan army convoy in Zehri district of Kandahar province on Tuesday, sparking a gunbattle which left eight rebels dead, the defence ministry said.
"Eight terrorists were killed but there were no casualties to Afghan army soldiers," it said in a statement.
Insurgents also attacked a road building project in Manogay district of eastern Kunar province on Tuesday, wounding two police guards and an engineer, acting district governor Haji Norullah said.
In Wardak province Taliban fighters yesterday attacked a logistics convoy transporting goods for foreign troops and torched three trucks, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Asif said.
Violence has increased in southern and eastern Afghanistan which has borne the brunt of the Taliban-led insurgency since the hardline regime was toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
