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Blast kills Pakistani national in Afghanistan: police
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An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier (R) keeps watch as a passer-by views the site of a blast near Kandahar prison March 14, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Ahmad Nadeem
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan |
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a Pakistani construction worker and wounded six of his compatriots on Sunday in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar, police said.
The device hit the vehicle which was carrying the group on a road close to Pakistan's consulate in the eastern part of the city and came after a series of attacks overnight by Taliban killed 31 people in several parts of Kandahar.
"It was a roadside bomb that hit the vehicle of Pakistani construction workers, killed one of them and wounded six more," police officer Mohammad Asif told Reuters.
Last week, five Pakistani employees of the same Pakistani construction firm, CITA, were gunned down by unknown people in another part of Kandahar.
Kandahar is the next target of an offensive by NATO-led forces after foreign and Afghan troops secured a district regarded as a key Taliban stronghold from the militants in adjacent Helmand in recent weeks.
Before the Taliban's ouster in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Kandahar was the traditional and spiritual seat of power of the militants.
No one has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack of last week or Sunday's one on the Pakistani nationals in Kandahar.
The Taliban mostly claim responsibility for attacks on Afghan government, foreign forces and anyone backing them, but the group has rarely targeted Pakistanis. (Reporting by Ismail Sameem; Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Pakistanis were not targeted as such, rather employees of SAITA are targetted. The reasons are obvious if you look up SAITA’s activities in Afghanistan – it is responsible for the building of strategic roads through Kandahar that NATO will use.
As to why the Taliban are not claiming credit for this, it is obvious to anyone who listens to Pakistani TV. A major discourse there is that Mullah Omar’s Taliban are good Taliban and different from the Taliban that are killing Pakistanis in Pakistan. How will it sound if it is made clear that the “good” Taliban too are killing Pakistanis?
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