KANDAHAR: A bomb attached to a bicycle killed an Afghan soldier in the troubled southern city of Kandahar on Thursday, while police found the bodies of three guards shot dead by the Taliban.

The bomb struck an Afghan military convoy, killing one soldier and wounding another, local police official Fazil Mohammad said at the scene of the latest attack in Kandahar.

Meanwhile, in central Ghazni, police found the bullet-riddled bodies of three security guards who had been kidnapped a week earlier.

The guards had been working for a private Afghan security company that escorts supply convoys on risky routes to bases of the US and Nato forces helping Afghanistan fight the Taliban and other extremists. “They were kidnapped by the armed opposition eight days ago,” said Ghazni province deputy police chief Mohammad Zaman. “We found their bodies on Thursday.” A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahed, said men from his group had captured and killed the men.

Elsewhere in Ghazni, a Taliban fighter was killed and two others wounded in a gunfight with security forces, Zaman said.—AFP