Five labourers killed in Afghanistan ambush

Militants ambushed and shot dead five Afghan labourers and wounded another as they brought construction wood to a US military base in eastern Afghanistan, police said today.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb went off near a bus bringing Interior Ministry officials to work today in Kabul, wounding one of them, said ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanezai.

The attack on the truck carrying the labourers happened yesterday in Kunar province, said Abdul Jalal, the provincial police chief. A seventh man, the driver, managed to escape unhurt.

Jalal suspected that Taliban militants were responsible for the killings and that the labourers had been targeted because they were working at an American base.