Gardez: At least 20 people were wounded when
a man threw grenades at a police vehicle in eastern
Afghanistan on Sunday, an official said.
Grenade attacks are relatively uncommon in Afghanistan
but it was the second time in less than 48 hours that police
have been targeted in such a way.
The attacker threw at least two grenades at a police
pickup truck in a crowded market in Khost city before fleeing
the area, Khost provincial police spokesman Mir Akbar Mangal
said.
"Twenty people, including several police, were wounded in
the attack. No one has been killed," he said, adding that
police were hunting the attacker.
Khost province, which borders the Pakistan tribal areas,
is a stronghold of the Al-Qaeda- and Taliban-linked Haqqani
militant group.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the
Taliban have said they were behind a grenade attack on a
police station in Kabul on Friday night.
Police said nobody was injured after a man lobbed at
least one grenade at a district police station in the west of
the capital.
The insurgents who have been fighting NATO-led foreign
troops and Afghan government forces for a decade use roadside
and suicide bombs more frequently than grenades.
The United Nations said the number of civilians killed in
violence in Afghanistan rose by 15 per cent in the first six
months of this year to 1,462, with insurgents blamed for 80
percent of the killings.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, December 18, 2011, 14:35