Rockets From Pakistan Kill Afghan Child
ASADABAD, Afghanistan, June 27–Several rockets fired by militants in Pakistan at villages across the border in eastern Afghanistan killed a child and wounded 13 others on Friday, officials said.
One of a number of rockets apparently targeting a base of US-led troops landed near a house in Asadabad, the capital of eastern Kunar province, killing the child and wounding another five, provincial governor Fazlulah Wahidy said.
Several other rockets hit Asmar district in Asadabad, wounding seven civilians, Wahidy said.
“These rockets were fired from across the border. They fire the rockets and then escape,” Wahidy told AFP.
Separately, ten rockets landed near the base of Afghan militia forces hired by US-led coalition troops in Khost province, wounding a soldier, provincial spokesman Khaibar Pashtun told AFP.
“They fired rockets from within Pakistan,” Pashtun said.
Kabul and Washington have ramped up pressure in recent weeks on Islamabad, a key ally in the US so-called “war on terror,” to root out Taliban militants based in its troubled northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
With US officials reporting a 40 percent rise in violence in east Afghanistan in the first five months of 2008, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that Pakistan’s failure to tackle the rebels was a “concern.”
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan soured further this week when Kabul’s intelligence service accused its Pakistani counterpart of masterminding an attempt to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai in April.
Pakistan angrily denied the claims.
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