An Afghan district governor and four Afghan police forces were killed in two separate roadside attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.
In the latest attack, Zaman Sabari, the district governor for Nadershah Kot district of south-eastern province of Khost was killed when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb on Saturday, Wazir Pacha, spokesman for the provincial police chief said, dpa reported.
Sabari was initially seriously wounded in the attack, but later succumbed to his injuries in a NATO-led hospital in the region, he said, adding that his son and two of his bodyguards, who were riding on the same vehicle, were wounded in the blast.
Separately, four Afghan police forces were killed in similar roadside bomb explosion in Dand district of southern Kandahar province on Friday afternoon, Matiullah Qateh, the provincial police chief said.
He said that the vehicle they were traveling in was also destroyed in the blast.
Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, took responsibility for the attack and said that the blast killed seven policemen.
Roadside bomb attacks, with some of them detonated by remote-controlled devices, have become a common tactic for the Taliban fighters, who have waged a bloody insurgency against the Afghan government and around 70,000 international troops stationed in country.
The militants carried out more than 2,000 roadside attacks and over 120 suicide bombing in Afghanistan last year, according to Afghan and US officials.