4 killed in spate of Afghan civilian deaths

A roadside bomb killed a father and three of his children in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, the latest of a recent spate of civilian casualties in the 12-year war. The United Nations mission in Kabul said on Monday that in the past two weeks, 125 Afghan civilians had been killed and 287 injured in the conflict, a 24 percent increase from the same period in 2012. Insurgents were responsible for 84 percent of all civilian casualties, the UN said. "A car hit an improvised explosive device in Lash Wa Juwayn district, killing four: a father and three of his children, one of them an infant," Abdul Rahman Zhwandai, spokesman for the governor of Farah province, where the attack took place, told AFP. "The man's wife was wounded in the blast." On Monday, a suicide bomb attack targeting NATO and Afghan forces killed two foreign soldiers and 10 children heading home after school in Paktia province, eastern Afghanistan. That attack came hours after a roadside bomb killed seven members of a family in Laghman province. The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, have repeatedly said they do not target civilians in their battle against President Hamid Karzai's government and foreign troops, but their attacks often kill non-combatants.