KANDAHAR, Sept 26: Two civilians and two policemen were killed on Monday when a bomb ripped through their vehicle in Afghanistan, an official said. The remote-controlled device in insurgency-hit Helmand province was believed to have been planted by rebels allied to the ousted Taliban regime, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Wali said.

“Two of our police and two civilians travelling with them were killed,” he said. “We believe it was the work of the Taliban.”

Helmand is one of the areas hardest hit by a Taliban insurgency launched after the group was toppled in a US-led invasion at the end of 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

In Zabul a bomb went off as a US military convoy passed through but there were no casualties, the US military said.

“There were no casualties, no damage to equipment,” Colonel Jerry O’Hara, spokesman for the 20,000-strong US-led military said.—AFP