Two suspected Taliban were killed while trying to place an improvised explosive device on the side of a road in southern Afghanistan, a police official said Saturday. The roadside bomb detonated while it was being planted, killing the two men in Zhari district in Kandahar province on Friday, said Ghulam Rasool, the district's police chief. Three children were also killed Friday and another wounded when an old rocket they were playing with exploded in Zabul province in the south, said Gen. Yaqoub Khan, the provincial police chief. Violence has soared in Afghanistan with more than 2,400 people, mostly militants, killed in fighting this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western military and Afghan officials.
