KABUL (AFP) — Security forces said they killed about 30 rebels in new operations while two Afghan civilians died in separate incidents in an insurgency which is now heading for its seventh year.
A bomb meanwhile exploded in a music shop in a small eastern town and hurt the shopkeeper, an official said, adding the attack may have been carried out by Taliban extremists who say secular music is un-Islamic and corrupting.
The Afghan defence ministry said 20 "enemies of the people" were killed in an overnight operation by Afghan and US-led coalition forces in Kunar province on the eastern border with Pakistan.
Fighters allied to the Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001 are active in the east but so are militants with other radical factions.
The coalition said separately it killed two militants in the province Sunday. Kunar governor Shalazai Diddar said a woman was also killed and three children hurt in the same incident.
About eight more rebel fighters were killed in days of operations that wound up Saturday in Taliban strongholds in the central province of Ghazni, deputy provincial police Mohammad Zaman told AFP.
Also in Ghazni, the Taliban killed a tribal elder whom they accused of supporting government forces, he said.
Three more insurgents were killed Saturday in a gunfight with police in Jogathu district about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Kabul, the interior ministry said.
A German engineer was held hostage in the district for three months until he was freed this month in exchange for prisoners and a ransom, according to one of the Afghan captives.
In Paktia in the east meanwhile a bomb blew up a police vehicle and killed a policeman, provincial spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish said.
The Taliban -- which banned secular music and television and stopped girls' education among a host of measures imposed during their rule -- launched their uprising soon after being ousted six years ago in a US-led coalition.
Attacks are up this year by more than 20 percent, according to the United Nations.
There are more than 50,000 international soldiers here to help the government bring security, the highest level yet but still below what many officials say is necessary.
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