AFGHANISTAN, July 31:  A roadside bomb which hit a bus in restive western Afghanistan on Tuesday killed at least eight people and wounded around 40, mostly women and children, officials said.

“It was a bomb planted by the Taliban to hit security forces but… it got a passenger bus,” Farah provincial police spokesman Muhibullah Muhib told AFP.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Taliban that they were responsible.

Afghanistan’s largest militant group is very active in the country’s west.

It often uses improvised explosive devices against government officials and Afghan and foreign forces.

The bus began its journey in the western city of Herat and was headed for the Afghan capital.

The explosion happened as it travelled through Farah’s Bala Baluk district at 4:30 am, provincial governor’s spokesman Naser Mehri told AFP.

Around a dozen of the wounded — mostly members of the Hazara ethnic group who tend to follow Shiite Islam in the Sunni-dominated country — were taken to hospital in Herat.

Among them was Mohammad Zahir, 40, who had been travelling with his newly married daughter to visit relatives in Kabul.

“The bus was driving on the main road when I heard a big bang,” Zahir told AFP.

“When I woke up I found myself in the hospital. I still don’t know what’s happened to my daughter.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack.

“Harming civilians, especially scholars, children and women, is against the Ulema Council’s (Afghanistan’s top religious leaders) fatwa,” Ghani said in a statement, referring to the group’s proclamation in June that suicide attacks and explosions were “haram” or prohibited in Islam.

The Farah explosion came after 22 passengers travelling on a Kabul-bound bus in the eastern province of Paktia were kidnapped by gunmen on Monday night, provincial police chief Raz Mohammad Mandozai told AFP.

Mandozai blamed the Taliban for the kidnapping and said a rescue operation had been launched.

Civilian deaths

A photo posted on social media purportedly of the bus in Farah showed the vehicle’s blackened shell and dozens of men at the scene.

Some were peering inside while others were walking through the wreckage. A number of emergency vehicles could be seen.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the 17-year conflict and improvised explosive devices, such as remotely detonated or pressure-plate bombs, are one of the main cause of casualties.

Such IEDs caused 877 civilian casualties in the first half of 2018 — 232 deaths and 645 wounded — accounting for 17 percent of overall civilian casualties, the latest UN figures show.

A total of 1,692 civilians were killed in the conflict during the first six months of this year. Another 3,430 were wounded.

That was the highest number of civilian fatalities for the period since the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan began keeping records in 2009.

Militant attacks and suicide bombs were the leading causes of death.

The Taliban has a strong presence across western Afghanistan, particularly in Farah. It launched a major attempt to take over the provincial capital in May, triggering intense fighting with US and Afghan forces.

After a day-long battle the Taliban fighters were forced to the outskirts of the city. AFP

Provincial government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwesh said the 2-day operation that ended Tuesday night in Logar province also killed a local Taliban commander.

He says two civilians were wounded in Baraki Barak district. There were no immediate reports of Afghan or international forces deaths.

The NATO military coalition says in a statement that the troops killed 24 insurgents as part of the operation that rescued two captured Afghan soldiers. Afghan officials gave varying numbers of 23 to 26 militants killed.

Monday night’s crash brought the total number of U.S. troops killed that day to seven, making it the deadliest day for U.S. forces so far this year. Two U.S. special operations forces were gunned down hours earlier in an insider attack by an Afghan policeman in eastern Afghanistan.

The NATO military coalition said in a statement that “initial reports” showed no enemy activity in the area at the time. The cause of the crash is under investigation, the statement said.

A U.S. official said all five of the dead were American. The official said the helicopter went down outside Kandahar city, the capital of Kandahar province. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been formally released.

It was the deadliest crash since August, when a U.S. military helicopter crashed during a firefight with insurgents in a remote area of Kandahar. Seven Americans and four Afghans died in that crash.

In March 2012, a helicopter crashed near the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing 12 Turkish soldiers on board and four Afghan civilians on the ground, officials said. And in August 2011, insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter, killing 30 American troops, mostly elite Navy SEALs, in Wardak province in central Afghanistan.