At least 36 reported killed in Afghan violence

At least 15 Afghans were killedwhen a suspected Taliban bomb blew a bus apart in a southernprovince today, while government forces…

At least 15 Afghans were killedwhen a suspected Taliban bomb blew a bus apart in a southernprovince today, while government forces said they killed16 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters and lost five of their own.

Ghulam Mahaiuddin, head of administration in the southernprovince of Helmand, said the bus blast happened early in themorning in Nadi Ali district, west of the provincial capitalLashkargah.

"Eight of those killed on the bus were male, six of themwere children and there was a woman too," he told Reuters.

Mahaiuddin said it appeared the bomb had gone offaccidentally inside the bus and may have been intended for anattack on independence celebrations in Lashkargah next week.

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He blamed the blast on guerrillas from the the Talibanregime overthrown in late 2001 and said it was possible thebomber was killed in the blast.

Troubled Helmand was a main bastion of the Taliban untiltheir ousting and has been hit by several attacks by aresurgent Taliban guerrilla movement in recent months.

In the southeastern province of Khost, border forces saidthey had killed 16 Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas repulsing amajor attack in which five border policemen were also killed.

Border police Major Ghafar said the insurgents used heavyguns, rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to attack abase used by a border battalion in the Shinkai area east ofKhost and adjacent to the border with Pakistan on Tuesday.

He said the fighting carried on overnight.

"The Taliban attack has been foiled. But we are continuingour mopping up," he said, adding that two Arabs from the alQaeda network had been captured.

Ghafar described it as the biggest attack in the area sincethe Taliban fell. "In the past, they have staged small-scaleattacks, but this one was the most serious of all," he said.

As he spoke by satellite phone, shellfire could be heard inthe background.

"Their attack had three phases," Ghafar said. "The lastlasted for several hours until 6.30 this morning and after thatwe staged a counter-attack and the sound you can hear isoutgoing fire."

He said authorities had not asked the U.S.-led coalitionforces for air support as Afghan forces had been sufficientlystrong to chase the insurgents from the area.

Ghafar said he did not know how many guerrillas had takenpart, but the attack had been led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a topmilitary commander and a former minister in the Taliban regime.

Khost was another major base area for the Taliban.

Afghan and coalition forces have come under almost daily,but usually ineffective rocket attack in the east and southeastof the country.

However, last month eight government soldierswere killed in a suspected Taliban attack near a market east ofKhost.

Last week six soldiers and a driver working for a Westernaid agency were killed on a district headquarters in a remotepart of Helmand near the border with Pakistan.

And the same day the Taliban said it had killed fivegovernment soldiers in an attack in Kandahar province on thesame days as that on the district office in Helmand.

That death toll of 12 had been the biggest for a single dayattributed to a resurgent Taliban guerrilla movement in manymonths, although local government officials denied the latterincident had been an attack and gave no casualty figure for it.

Police in Kabul, meanwhile, said two student Taliban supporterswere killed and one wounded after a bomb they were making blewup in a western suburb of the capital on Tuesday.

Khalilullah Aminzada said the three were students at Kabulmedical institute and planned to use the devices as car bombs.