Blasts kill 23 in Afghan market

KABUL: At least 23 civilians were killed in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province and dozens were wounded when rockets hit a cattle market on Monday, Afghan government and Taliban officials said.

The warring sides blamed each other for the attack on the openair weekly cattle market in Sangin district, where hundreds of villagers from neighbouring districts had gathered to trade sheep and goats. A spokesman for Helmand’s governor said several rockets fired by Taliban insurgents landed close to the cattle market, killing 23 civilians, including children.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman said the Afghan army fired several rounds of mortar bombs on civilian houses and the cattle market, killing dozens of villagers. Khushakyar, who goes by a single name, said he was trying to sell a calf when the rockets hit the market. He said his two nephews were killed and his son was wounded.

“I saw around 20 bodies on the ground,” he said, adding that dozens were wounded and “livestock lay dead next to men.”

Some residents of Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, said the shelling occurred during fierce clashes between Taliban militants and government security forces in residential areas surrounding the market

‘RUSSIAN BOUNTIES LED TO U.S. TROOP DEATHS ’

Russian bounty offers to Taliban militants led to the deaths of several US soldiers according to US intelligence agencies, the Washington Post reported, and Congress on Monday demanded more information about the reports.

It was unclear how many may have been targeted or killed under the programme, but the intelligence stemmed from US military interrogations of captured militants and was passed up from US Special Operations forces in Afghanistan.