Child among 13 dead in Afghanistan's violence

Two women and a child were among more than a dozen people who died during separate incidents of violence in various provinces in Afghanistan, officials said. Six Taliban militants were killed and three others wounded during a military operation codenamed “Oqab 166” in the Sangin district of Southern Helmand province, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Sunday, Pajhwok Afghan News reported. A large quantity of arms and ammunition was seized during the operation, the statement said, without giving further details. In Central Uruzgan province, three militants, including a group pleader, were killed when the roadside bomb they were planting went off prematurely in the Charchino district, police said. Janan, who led a 25-member Taliban group, was among the dead, said Gulab Khan, the provincial crime branch police chief. Meanwhile, a Ministry of Defense statement said four soldiers of Afghan National Army (ANA) troops had died as a result of bomb explosions in various provinces. In Southern Ghazni province, two women and a child were killed and another four women were wounded on Sunday morning in a rocket attack blamed on the Taliban in the Qarah Bagh district. The district chief, Fazl Rahman, said the incident took place in the Mirkhan village when a Taliban-fired rocket aimed at an Afghan Local Police post missed the target and hit a house.