Roadside bomb kills 15 civilians in Afghanistan: Official

Fifteen Afghan civilians died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan and seven road  construction company employees were killed in an airstrike in an eastern province, authorities said on Saturday.        

The deaths were the latest in an upsurge of violence that has made this year the deadliest for both Afghans and foreign troops since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban.                                

There was also a suicide bomb attack on Saturday in northern Kunduz province, one of several areas that were relatively peaceful for many years but where the insurgency is  now spreading fast. It is also used as a springboard to launch  other attacks.  

The attacker was driving a police vehicle and targeted an Afghan National Army convoy, wounding five soldiers and three women who were in the area, said Char Dara District Chief  Abdul Wahid Omakheil. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said the group carried out the attack.                 

US president Barack Obama is expected to unveil a review  of his Afghanistan war strategy next week, although officials have said they do not expect it to result in major policy  shifts.                      

Obama has pledged to start bringing home US troops -  the majority of a 150,000-strong international force - from  next year, but not yet decided on the pace of the withdrawal, which many commanders and officials say should happen gradually.  

According to UN figures, 1,271 civilians were killed in  the first six months of this year, a 21% jump on the same period in 2009. And around 680 troops have died so far in  2010 around a third of the total deaths since the start of the war.

Newly planted mine
The 15 civilians were killed on Friday in the Khan Neshin  district of Helmand province, said provincial spokespersonn Dawud  Ahmadi. No further details were available. 

"It was a newly planted mine," said Ahmadi.               

The road construction company employees were killed in  eastern Paktia province in an airstrike by the NATO-led  International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) overnight, said Paktia deputy governor Abdur Rahman Mangal.                

He said the employees were in roadside tents near the  Paktia provincial capital of Gardez. No further details were  available.   

"The company had recently begun its operations," Mangal  said.                                        

An ISAF spokesperson said they were looking into the  incident but declined further comment.              

Last month, NATO leaders agreed to hand control of security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces by the end of 2014  and said the NATO-led force could halt combat operations by  the same date if security conditions were good enough.               

But some US and NATO officials have said the spike in violence and problems in building up a capable Afghan army and police force to take over could make it hard to meet the 2014 target date set by President Hamid Karzai.