Afghan roadside bombs kill 11 civilians

TWO roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan have killed a total of 11 civilians, including seven women and three children, officials say.

The interior ministry and local officials said the attacks on Wednesday, both in Musa Qala district of Helmand province, wounded six others, also mostly women and children, and blamed the Taliban.

"Today at around 9.00am (1530 AEDT), a roadside bomb blew up a civilian truck in Musa Qala that killed 10, including seven young women and three children." provincial spokesman Farid Ahmad Farhang told AFP.

Hours later, a second device destroyed a civilian motorcycle, killing a man and wounding a woman and three children - all members of the same family - Farhang said.

A statement from the Helmand governor's office confirmed the toll and blamed the "enemies of Afghanistan", a term used by officials to refer to Taliban insurgents waging an 11-year war against the Kabul government and its NATO supporters.

Roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are the deadliest insurgent weapon in Afghanistan both for the military fighting the Taliban and civilians.

The crude devices, often built on old ammunition, are planted by the side of roads to target NATO and Afghan troops but they also kill civilians travelling on the same roads.

The United Nations says 1145 civilians were killed in the war in the first six months of this year, blaming 80 per cent of the deaths on insurgents, with more than half caused by roadside bombs.

Last year, a record 3021 civilians died in the war, the UN has said, and this year around 30 per cent of casualties have been women and children. Most of them were victims of roadside bombs.

On October 19 a bomb ripped through a minibus carrying guests to a wedding in the northern province of Balkh, killing 19 people.

A day after the Balkh blast, the UN urged the Taliban leadership to enforce their ban on IEDs, announced by the militants' one-eyed leader Mullah Omar in 1998.

Foreign combat troops are due to withdraw by the end of 2014 and there are fears that the Taliban will extend their activities across wider swathes of the country against ill-prepared Afghan forces.

On Friday, a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform killed 42 people, including five children, and wounded 50 more at a mosque in northern Faryab province after prayers for the festival of Eid-ul-Adha.

It was the worst death toll in a single attack in Afghanistan since 80 died on December 6 last year in a suicide blast at a shrine in Kabul on the Shi'ite holy day of Ashura.

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