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The Afghan Taliban has intensified attacks since weekend when the insurgent group launched an annual rebel offensive, killing nearly 35 people across the country.
On Thursday afternoon, two civilians were killed and two other wounded when their vehicle was struck by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Landi Naw area, Musa Qala district in the country' s restive southern province of Helmand, the provincial government spokesman Ommar Zhwak told Xinhua on Friday.
The spokesman blamed the Taliban for placing the IED along the main road in the province 555 km south of national capital Kabul.
On Thursday morning, eight policemen were killed in roadside bombing in eastern Logar province.
"Eight Afghan Local Police (ALP) cops died when their patrol was hit by an IED in Sar-e-sang area outside the provincial capital Pul-e-Alam city at around 11 a.m. local Thursday," said deputy provincial police chief Rahis Azad.
Following the bombing in Logar 60 km south of Kabul, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Taliban, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, on Sunday began their annual spring operation codenamed " Khalid bin Waleed," the name of a general in Islamic history, the outfit announced in a statement released to the local media.
The Taliban in the statement also urged civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people not to support the government and foreign troops.
On Wednesday, the provincial peace council chief Malim Shah Wali was assassinated in Helmand. Two policemen, serving as bodyguards for Shah Wali, were also killed in the derive-by shooting which took place near the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.
The High Peace Council is a government-backed body tasked with approaching the anti-government militants and encouraging them to give up fighting and resume normal life.
As part of the offensive, the Taliban also said that they would resort to suicide bombing and IED attacks against security forces besides trying to infiltrate to the ranks of Afghan forces to launch attacks against foreign forces. Nearly 100,000 NATO and U.S. forces are deployed to ensure peace to the country.
On Wednesday, also in Helmand's Lashkar Gah, a militant shot dead a tribal elder named Ahmad Shah in a shooting which also claimed the life of the attacker.
On Tuesday, three British soldiers died when their vehicle touched off an IED in Helmand. In neighboring Uruzgan province, on the same day, four civilians, including three children, were killed and three women wounded when their vehicle ran over a Taliban IED.
On Sunday, the first day of the Taliban spring operation, Taliban launched a roadside bombing that killed the deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Hossain Hadil and his two bodyguards in eastern Ghazni province 100 km south of Kabul.
On Sunday night, at least nine policemen had been killed and several policemen wounded when Taliban launched attacks on police checkpoints in Helmand, eastern Laghman, western Badghis and northern Jawzjan provinces.
However, the counter-attacks and military operation have also claimed the lives of more than 120 militants over the same period of time.
The Taliban-led insurgency and conflicts claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Afghan security forces and 400 foreign soldiers while leaving 2,754 civilians dead last year in the war-hit central Asian state.
