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KABUL, Sept 22: Gunmen in Afghanistan attacked a convoy of oil tankers importing fuel for foreign forces and a construction company, killing a Pakistani worker, an Afghan government official said on Friday.
Separately, a body found in southern Afghanistan was identified as that of a kidnapped Turkish guard. The Taliban said its militants had killed the guard after a Turkish construction company ignored an ultimatum to leave Afghanistan.
Gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and rifles attacked the tanker convoy late on Thursday on the main road from the Pakistani border to the eastern city of Jalalabad, said district government chief Hazrat Khan Khaksar.
Three of the tankers that came from Pakistan were bound for a US military base and two were bringing fuel for a road construction company, he said. All five were destroyed. There was no claim of responsibility.
AFGHANS KILLED: In a separate incident, suspected Taliban ambushed a truck taking construction workers home in southern Afghanistan on Friday, killing 19 of them.
A spokesman for the Taliban, waging an intensified insurgency against the government and foreign forces across the south and east, claimed responsibility.
The workers’ bus was hit by a roadside blast and gunmen then opened fire, an Interior Ministry official said. The men were heading home for the beginning of Ramazan.
“Right after the explosion terrorists arrived at the scene and shot the workers dead,” the ministry said in a statement.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, claimed responsibility, saying the labourers were working for the government. The men were building a district government building near the Pakistani border, the ministry official said.—Reuters
