Kabul: A group of children set off an unexploded mortar round in a residential area in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, causing a blast that killed a woman and two children, according to provincial official.
Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said another seven children were wounded in Sunday’s explosion. He said the mortar round had been fired by insurgents the night before but failed to explode.
Afghanistan is littered with landmines and unexploded munitions left over from decades of war, which kill and wound hundreds of people every year.
In Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar, a rickshaw loaded with explosives blew up near a mosque and registration centre, wounding a policeman and six civilians, Khogyani said. No one immediately claimed the blast.
Both the Taliban and a Daesh affiliate are active in Nangarhar.
Daesh claimed responsibility for a bombing in Jalalabad on Saturday that wounded 12 people, including two traffic police. Meanwhile, at least nine Afghan policemen were killed and 10 others injured in a gunfight with the Taliban in Badakhshan province, an official said on Sunday.
“Militants stormed security checkpoints in Tashkan district on Saturday night, triggering a gunfight. Sporadic clashes were ongoing Sunday in the district as security forces are fighting back the assailants,” the official said.
Several militants were also killed and wounded but the exact number could not be immediately verified, the official added.
