KABUL, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Increasing Taliban-linked militancy and conflicts have claimed the lives of 38 people including 14 civilians and two dozen anti-government militants over the past two weeks in the southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces --the former stronghold of Taliban, officials said.
On Wednesday only, 14 people, all non-combatants, lost their lives in the militants' linked activities in the form of deadly roadside bombings in Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand provinces, said officials.
In the latest violent incident, a roadside bomb presumably planted by Taliban militants, struck a civilian car in Marouf district of Kandahar province Wednesday evening killing six innocent civilians, a local official confirmed.
"The tragic and deadly incident happened Wednesday evening in Sang village of Marouf district, resulting in the death of six people including two women, three children and one man," spokesman for Kandahar's provincial administration Jawed Faisal told Xinhua.
He also blamed the attack on the enemies of peace, a term used for Taliban militants by government officials. However, the outfit fighting the government has yet to make comment.
In a similar incident also on Wednesday in Dezro village of Musa Qala district in Helmand province 555 km south of capital city Kabul, eight civilians including seven women were killed and two others injured, Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement released Wednesday.
"A civilian car ran onto a roadside bomb planted by the Taliban terrorists in Dizro area of Musa Qala district at about 9 a.m. local time, sparking a powerful blast and leaving eight civilians dead on the spot," the ministry said in a statement.
Two more civilians were wounded in the blast, the statement of the Interior Ministry said.
Meantime, police in Kandahar, the birthplace of Taliban outfit, announced the elimination of two dozen Taliban fighters elsewhere in Kandahar province over the past two weeks.
"Twenty four Taliban rebels have been killed during series of operations over the past two weeks elsewhere in Kandahar province, " Rahmatullah Atrafi, deputy to Kandahar provincial police chief told a press conference on Wednesday.
One armed Taliban fighter sustained injuries and three others have been detained during the operations, he added.
There were no casualties on the security forces, he said. Taliban militants have yet to comment.
Taliban militants, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have often attacked Afghan forces and about 100, 000 NATO-led forces with the roadside bombs or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and suicide attacks. However, the lethal homemade weapons often inflict casualties on civilians.
A total of 1,145 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflicts and violent security mishaps in the first six months this year in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, 15 percent down in overall civilian casualties from a year earlier, according to a United Nations report released here in Kabul on Aug. 8.
The UN report, however, attributed 80 percent of the civilian deaths to the attacks committed by Taliban insurgents and other armed groups opposing the Afghan government. Another 10 percent of the deaths were attributed to Afghan and NATO-led forces and the remaining 10 percent were unattributed.
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