KABUL, Feb 7: Bomb blasts, ambushes and other incidents left seven Afghans dead, including government officials, authorities said on Saturday, also reporting that security forces had killed 10 militants.

The violence comes amid new focus on the war-shattered country where unrest has been on the increase in the past seven years since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, despite a huge international military and aid effort.

In one attack, a district chief and his driver were killed on Saturday when a remote-controlled bomb exploded under their vehicle close to the border with Pakistan, Nangarhar province governor Gul Agha Sherzai said.

It was not known who was behind the attack that killed Na’eem Khan Shinwar, the district chief of Goshta, he said.

Hours later, a senior member of the Nangarhar provincial council was shot dead by unknown gunmen in the remote Dara-i-Noor district, the official said.

Police killed a suspect and arrested another in connection with the murder, the governor said, adding the motive was unknown.

Two police officers were killed in an ambush late Friday when they were going to reinforce a police post that had come under attack, a provincial government spokesman said.

The dead were the police chief of Laghman province’s Qarghayi district, Abdul Aziz, and one of his men, provincial spokesman Sayed Ahmad told AFP.

The US-led coalition announced meanwhile that a civilian man shot by its troops at a checkpost in the eastern province of Khost had died of his wounds.

A woman and a child were wounded late on Friday when troops opened fire after their vehicle did not heed warnings to stop, it said.

The interior ministry announced separately that Afghan and international forces had killed 10 “enemies of peace and stability” in the province of Helmand on Friday.—AFP