4 civilians, several Taleban killed in Afghan violence

KABUL - A blast in southern Afghanistan killed a child and wounded four people, while coalition forces claimed they had killed "several extremists" and arrested 12 others in separate operations elsewhere the country, officials said on Saturday.
The blast was triggered by explosives attached to a parked bicycle in the western part of Kandahar city, the provincial capital of the same name, on Saturday morning as a police vehicle was passing by, said Mohammad Iqbal, a police official at the scene of the incident.
The explosive that was detonated by a remote-controlled device killed a child and wounded two police officers and two civilians, he said.
In a similar incident in south-eastern Paktia province on Saturday, three civilians were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside mine, provincial spokesman Ghamai Khan Mohammadi said.
He said that the bomb was newly planted on the road, which is often used by Afghan and international forces in the province.
Taleban militants, whose government was ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001, have stepped up their attacks, mainly by roadside and suicide attacks, both tactics widely believed to have been copied from Iraqi insurgents.
Meanwhile, the US military said that its forces had killed "several extremists" and arrested four in an operation aimed to disrupt militant activities in the south-eastern province of Khost on Friday.
"During their search, the joint force identified two armed militants manoeuvring against their force. They responded with small arms fire and airstrikes, killing both militants," the military said in a statement.
In a separate operation, also on Friday, coalition forces detained eight other Taleban militants in eastern Nangahar province, the statement said.
The operation had targeted a Taleban militant known to have facilitated roadside and rocket attacks against the Afghan and coalition forces in the region, the military said.