Insurgency in Afghanistan claims over 170 lives in past week

Taliban-led insurgency in war-torn Afghanistan have claimed 176 lives over the past week.

"In 119 security incidents elsewhere in the country, 176 people including 135 Taliban insurgents, 29 civilians and 12 policemen have been killed over the past one week," Interior Ministry spokesman Zamarai Bashari told a press conference in Afghan capital Kabul.

In militancy-plagued Afghanistan, spring and summer are known as fighting seasons as clashes between government forces and militants intensify.

However, the spokesman gave no casualties of the Afghan army and NATO-led troops suffered over the past week.

In the latest wave of violence, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle in former Taliban stronghold Kandahar in south Afghanistan on Sunday morning killing four and injuring 14 others, almost all civilians, said doctor Mohammad Ibrahim at Kandahar Mir Wais hospital.

Furthermore, a soldier of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on Sunday in the troubled southern region where Taliban are active, said a press release issued by ISAF.

Fourteen ISAF soldiers, half of them Americans, have been killed since the start of April, according to media, compared with 14 deaths of foreign soldiers in April 2009.

The NATO-led coalition force has lost 153 service members since the beginning of 2010 in Afghanistan, compared with 92 in the same period last year.

A statement of the Afghan Defence Ministry on Sunday confirmed that three soldiers with the Afghan National Army were killed and three others injured in northern Kunduz province in clash with militants on Saturday.

It also said that two militants were captured in Lashkar Gah, capital of southern Helmand province, on Saturday.

A helicopter of NATO-led troops crashed outside southern Zabul provincial capital Qalat city on Thursday, leaving four soldiers dead.

Source: Xinhua