KANDAHAR - Fifteen Afghan civilians were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the country's southern Helmand province, authorities said on Saturday. The incident happened on Friday in the Khan Neshin district of Helmand, said provincial spokesman Dawud Ahmadi. No further details were available. "It was a newly planted mine," said Ahmadi. Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were overthrown more than nine years ago with record casualties on all sides of the conflict, despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops. Ordinary Afghans have borne the brunt of the fighting. According to UN figures, 1,271 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year, a 21 percent jump on the same period in 2009. This year has also been the deadliest for foreign troops since the war began in late 2001. Around 680 troops have died so far in 2010 compared to 521 for all of 2009. Around 2,250 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan since the start of the war. Last month, NATO leaders agreed to hand control of security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces by the end of 2014 and said the NATO-led force could halt combat operations by the same date if security conditions were good enough. But some US and NATO officials have said the spike in violence and problems in building up a capable Afghan army and police force to take over could make it hard to meet the 2014 target date set by President Hamid Karzai.
