An Afghan government official was gunned down in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, while three border police forces were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the country's eastern region, officials said, according to dpa. Abdul Zahir, head of public transport in southern Kandahar province, was gunned down by two attackers riding on motorbikes on Sunday morning as he made his way to his office in Kandahar city, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The attack came a day after three suicide bombers stormed the office for Kandahar's provincial governor, located in the heart of the city, killing themselves and five policemen. The provincial governor was unharmed, but nine people were wounded. Three border police forces were killed and as many were wounded on Saturday afternoon when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Babrak Tani area of south-eastern Khost province, Abdul Qayoum, a police official said Sunday. Roadside and suicide attacks have become common tactics for the Taliban militants, who are waging a seven-year-old insurgency against Afghan and international forces since the ouster of their government in late 2001. Separately, US-led coalition forces destroyed a Taliban anti- aircraft ZPU-2 weapon in a "precision strike" in the Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province on Sunday, the US military said in a statement. The Taliban recently obtained anti-aircraft weapons that pose a serious threat to NATO-led forces stationed in the country, who mostly rely on use of air power as part of their anti-insurgent operations. The coalition had destroyed two more rebel anti-aircraft weapons in the district in the past one week. In another incident, a coalition drone crashed in south-eastern province of Paktika on Sunday shortly after it took off, the US military said in a separate statement. The statement said the unmanned aircraft experienced technical problems and that there was no "enemy activity" in the area at the time of the crash. More than 70,000 international troops deployed from 42 nations are stationed in Afghanistan. More than 25,000 more troops, with most of them Americans, are expected to arrive in the war-shattered country in coming months to provide security for the presidential elections in August.
