KHOST: A mother and her newborn baby were among six family members killed in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan overnight, police and witnesses said Sunday.

The victims were heading home from the hospital after the mother had given birth when the bomb planted by Afghan Taliban insurgents tore through their vehicle in Khost province, police said.

“Six people – three women, two adult men and a newborn baby – were killed,” deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Yaqoub told AFP.

Relatives said the family was returning home after the mother delivered her baby in a hospital in the town of Sabari.

Five other civilians were killed in two separate roadside bomb blasts in the southern province of Kandahar Sunday, President Hamid Karzai’s office said in a statement offering condolences to the families of all those killed.

Roadside bombs are the weapon of choice for the extremist militants who are fighting to bring down the Western-backed government in Kabul.

The improvised explosive devices often miss their military targets and hit civilians who use the same roads.

The United Nations says 1,145 civilians were killed in the war in the first six months of this year, blaming 80 per cent of the deaths on insurgents. More than half the deaths were caused by roadside bombs.