The Ministry of Interior said the morning explosion occurred in Shamulzayi district of Zabul province. Earlier this week, 20 Afghan civilians were killed when the bus they were riding in hit a roadside bomb in Nimroz province in southwest Afghanistan.[break]
Also in the south on Saturday, two gunmen on a motorcycle killed Wakil Mohammad Khan, a member of the local council in Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand province, the interior ministry said.
Separately, NATO reported the deaths of two coalition service members in roadside bombings — one Saturday in the west and the other Friday in the south. No other details were disclosed.
In Kabul, about 500 demonstrators chanted "Death to the Pakistan military!" and "Long live Afghanistan!" as they protested against rocket attacks that have killed at least 36 civilians, including 12 children, along the eastern border with Pakistan in recent weeks.
The protest, organized by a group known as the National Participation Front, called on the international community to warn Pakistan against the attacks. Group director Najibullah Kabali accused the Pakistani army and intelligence service of launching rocket attacks on innocent people in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.
Pakistan on Monday denied Afghan accusations that it fired hundreds of rockets into two eastern provinces in Afghanistan, killing the 36 civilians.
Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Athar Abbas said no rounds were intentionally fired into Afghanistan, but that some may have accidentally fallen onto the neighboring state´s territory when security forces targeted militants carrying out cross-border attacks into Pakistan.
The back-and-forth accusations have further strained the troubled relationship between the two countries.
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