Hijjah 08, 1431 H/Nov. 14, 2010, SPA -- A series of bomb blasts and insurgents attacks killed 11 people across Afghanistan on Sunday, including five NATO service members and three Afghan police, officials said. According to AP, the strikes, which come a day after Taliban fighters stormed a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan, show the insurgents' fighting spirit has not been broken despite a surge of U.S. troops and firepower. Also Sunday, the Afghan president's office said the former ambassador-designate to Pakistan, who was seized by gunmen two years ago in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, has been released and is back home safe. The diplomat, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, was freed in eastern Afghanistan late Saturday in a joint effort by officials from both countries and has returned to Kabul, where he met Sunday with President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan leader's office said. A brief statement gave no details on how he was freed. Farahi was heading from the Afghan consulate toward his home in the border city of Peshawar on Sept. 22, 2008, when gunmen stopped the vehicle and killed his driver. «Abdul Khaliq Farahi is in good condition and right now he is in Kabul with his family,» Karzai's office said. NATO said three coalition service members were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan and two others died in separate explosions in the south. The international military coalition did not provide further details or the nationalities of the dead service members. The deaths brought to 31 the number of coalition service members who have died in Afghanistan so far this month. Insurgents also killed three Afghan policemen, who died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province in the south, said Gov. Khudi Rahim. Two other policemen were wounded in the blast in Tarin Kot district, he said.
