Two Afghans killed in rocket attack

Militants fired a rocket at a car carrying at least two Unicef workers in western Afghanistan today, killing two Afghans and seriously wounding a third, police said.

The rocket was fired as the car was travelling to the city of Heart in western Afghanistan, said Nisar Ahmad Pakar, a district police officer. The car’s driver and one passenger were killed, he said.

A third passenger was seriously wounded.

Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for Unicef in Kabul, the capital, said a driver for the aid group, an Afghan staff member and a third person from another aid group were in the car.

He said the Unicef staff member was seriously injured in the afternoon attack and that police had informed the UN agency that two people were killed. He said he could not immediately confirm if either was a Unicef employee.

Carwardine said the attack against the UN’s children agency was unusual, and that he could not recall any Unicef fatalities in the last four years in Afghanistan.

The Unicef car was accompanied by another car carrying armed guards, which is standard procedure for the agency in Heart province, he said.

The last time Unicef suffered any violence in Afghanistan was in May of last year, when its offices in Jalalabad were attacked by rioters demonstrating against drawings originally published in European newspapers showing Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Two cars were set on fire but no one was hurt.

Elsewhere today, an oil tanker exploded just outside of Kandahar, killing the driver of the truck, district administrative chief Aghi Siraj Khan said.

Khan said it appeared someone put explosives in the tanker several hours before it was driven.

Supporters of the hard-line Islamic Taliban militia ousted from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001 have stepped up attacks in recent months, principally targeting international and Afghan government soldiers.