KABUL, Afghanistan — A roadside bomb killed 17 civilians Friday as they traveled to a wedding in western Afghanistan. Most of the dead were women and children, and it was the third time in less than 10 days that a bomb claimed the lives of Afghan civilians.
The minivan the group was traveling in hit an improvised explosive device buried in a dirt road in Farah province, said Abdul Rahman Zawandai, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Nine others in the group were wounded, including five women and two children.
The area is near a small village that is heavily patrolled by Afghan soldiers, the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Local Police, who may have been the intended target, Zawandai said.
Mohammad Nazir Khidmat, the provincial council chairman, said, “This is the work of the enemies of peace.”
The Taliban frequently plant bombs in this area as a way to kill government officials or members of the Afghan security forces, but, as was the case Friday, “they bring more casualties to civilians,” Khidmat said.
On Nov. 10, a roadside bomb attack similar to the one in Farah killed six members of a family returning from a hospital in Khost province after the birth of a child. The newborn was among the dead. On Nov. 8, a roadside bomb hit a pickup in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province, killing 10 civilians, including five women and a child.
The Taliban and other anti-government fighters are responsible for about 80 percent of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, many of which are the result of improvised explosive devices, which cause about a third of all the deaths and injuries, according to a midyear report on the conflict by the United Nations.
In the first six months of 2012, more than 3,000 civilian deaths and injuries related to the conflict were reported in Afghanistan.
Farah, a province in far western Afghanistan, has never had a major contingent of international forces stationed there, and the Taliban have found it easy to move around. Their numbers rose in the past two years as some insurgents from neighboring Helmand province, which was the focus of international efforts during the surge in troop strength, relocated to Farah, said Afghan security officials.
In Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan on Friday, two children were wounded in the Panjwai district and an Afghan police officer was killed nearby, according to Afghan officials.
One child was hurt when he was hit by a stray bullet during a firefight between Taliban fighters and the Afghan police. The other child, a 15-year old boy, Abdul Khaliq, was wounded as he returned to his home, which he and his family had fled months before because of fighting nearby. As he was walking through the house, checking for damage, he stepped on a bomb that appeared to have been planted by insurgents, said Hajji Mahmood, the chief of the Panjwai Shura Council.
He lost an arm and a leg in the blast, said Jawad Faisal, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Afghan soldiers rushed to the scene and took the boy to an Afghan military hospital.
The Taliban frequently booby-trap abandoned homes in areas where they are fighting so the houses cannot be used by Afghan or coalition forces.
In the same area of Panjwai, a roadside bomb struck a police vehicle Friday, killing one Afghan National Police officer and wounding another.
Information for this article was contributed by Sharifullah Sahak of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 11/17/2012