November 23, 2008	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 24, 1429

KABUL, Nov 22: Bomb blasts and military operations against insurgents have killed 31 people in Afghanistan, including a French soldier who stepped on a mine on Saturday and eight wedding-goers, according to the authorities.

Sixty-two people, the groom among them, were wounded when two or three grenades were thrown into the men’s section of a wedding reception in the northern province of Parwan on Friday night, officials said.

“It is not clear whether this was a criminal act, or due to family or internal problems, or if it was a terrorist attack,” interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said in Kabul.

The French trooper was killed and another wounded when a mine went off about 10km south of Kabul, the French military said. The two demining specialists were making their way towards a firing range, an official said.

A bomb exploded in a vegetable market in the eastern town of Khost on Saturday, killing a 15-year-old boy and a passer-by, provincial intelligence chief Colonel Mohammed Yaqob told AFP.

Fifteen other people were wounded, he added.

Another bomb blew up a police vehicle in the central province of Ghazni and killed three policemen and wounded two, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir said.

Jahangir also reported that authorities had found the body of a man shot dead by the Taliban after being accused of spying for the government and its allies in the international military. However, “this person had no cooperation with the government and foreign forces and was a civilian”, he told AFP.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the man was killed on Friday after being interrogated by the militia’s leadership.

Taliban also said they had killed a district governor in the border province of Kunar whose bullet-riddled body was found on Saturday.

The governor of Marawara district, Ghais Haqmal, had been kidnapped by Taliban three months ago and the militants had demanded the release of 50 of their jailed comrades in exchange for his life, authorities said.

The demand could not be met, “so they killed the district governor and today is his funeral”, Kunar government spokesman Adris Gharwal said.

The US-led military supporting the Afghan government announced meanwhile that troops had killed 14 insurgents in operations in the southern provinces of Helmand and Farah in the past two days.

Troops had also shot and killed a civilian in Khost on Friday when the vehicle he was in came too close to a patrol and ignored warnings to stay away, the coalition said in a statement, expressing regret.—AFP