Taliban insurgents killed up to 30 Afghans working for a road-building company in the volatile south of the country, officials said today.
Violence has surged across Afghanistan despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, with military and civilian death tolls reaching record levels.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said three of its service members had been killed in two roadside bomb attacks in the south yesterday and today.
There was no immediate explanation for the attack late yesterday in the Sangin district of Helmand province in which the roadcrew workers and security guards were killed, although construction crews are frequently targeted.
"A group of Taliban attacked the site with machine guns and rockets, killing 25 of my workers," said an official from the Afghan Construction company who identified himself as Aqa Jan.
Mohammad Mamaluddin, the Helmand deputy police chief, said later the death toll had risen to 30 and that another 17 were wounded.
He said the attackers had also set fire to machinery and taken about 12 four-wheel drive vehicles.
Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand governor, said 12 bodies had been taken to a hospital in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, along with some of the wounded.
With Washington winding down its commitment in Iraq while stepping up efforts in Afghanistan, the toll of foreign military dead in the Afghan conflict since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 passed the grim milestone of 2,000 a week ago.
A UN report has also said civilian casualties spiked by 31 per cent in the first six months of the year, more than three-quarters of them blamed on insurgents.
In neighbouring Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban, Isaf said the body of an Afghan civilian had been found tied up between two roadside bombs which had apparently been laid to target anyone trying to help the man.
The man had been shot in the head, it said.
Reuters