Roadside mine kills 9 civilians in southern Afghanistan, underscoring security concerns

9 Afghan civilians killed by mine blast in south

KABUL, Afghanistan — A roadside bomb blast hit a minivan in southern Afghanistan on Friday, killing nine civilians and wounding eight others, officials said.

The spokesman for the Kandahar provincial government, Zalmai Ayoubi, said four women and three children were among those who died in the blast in Maywand district of the province. The eight injured people were taken to a hospital run by NATO troops, he said.

Violence has spiked recently in Afghanistan’s volatile south as Taliban insurgents step up attacks ahead of a planned major operation by NATO forces to secure the main city of Kandahar.

Ayoubi said the group was traveling from their village toward Kandahar city, and the explosion occurred after the driver turned off the main road to go around a section that was damaged.

Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban and the current focus of U.S. commanders’ plans to bring an end to the nearly 9-year-old insurgency.

Violence in Afghanistan has risen sharply in recent weeks. At least 30 NATO troops have been killed so far this month, 20 of them U.S. service members, including an American who died Thursday from a roadside bomb. Taliban insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter over Helmand — another southern province — on Wednesday, killing four American troops.

Many civilians have also been victims. An explosion at a wedding party on Wednesday in a village near Kandahar killed at least 40 people and wounded 74.

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s planned visit to a front-line base in Helmand on Thursday was canceled after cell phone calls referring to a possible rocket attack on a helicopter were intercepted, the British domestic news agency Press Association reported.

Cameron, on his first visit to Afghanistan since coming to power last month, spoke with British troops at his country’s main base in Helmand on Friday.

On Thursday, the top U.S. and NATO commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, acknowledged that the coming operation to secure Kandahar will take longer than originally planned.

McChrystal, speaking in Brussels, said he had underestimated the amount of time needed to get local support for the operation, although he insisted he would still demonstrate a turnaround in the war by year’s end.

Associated Press writers Robert H. Reid in Kabul and Anne Gearan in Brussels contributed to this report.