Afghanistan aid workers among 12 dead in civilian killings

Insurgents shot and killed 12 civilians in two incidents at the weekend, including six aid workers employed on government projects, officials said on Tuesday. The bodies of six victims were found in the Gulran district of western Herat province, Jamel Danishof the ministry of rural rehabilitation said. Five were Afghan employees of the US-based International Rescue Committee who had beenkidnapped on Sunday. The group, which has worked in Afghanistan since 1988, is suspending its operations. The sixth victim worked for the ministry. "The IRC is devastated and grief-stricken by the deaths of our colleagues who were all working to make a better Afghanistan," the IRC's president, George Rupp, said in a statement. President Hamid Karzai and the UN office in Afghanistan condemned the killings, which the UN said could be classified as a war crime. The Taliban regularly target government employees. Danish said the six were kidnapped by the Taliban and killed after negotiations to free them failed. Meanwhile, Rohullah Samon, spokesman for eastern Paktia province, said the bodies of six unidentified civilians were found on Tuesday by a roadside. He gave no other details. In Kabul, a suicide bomber riding a bicycle was killed when his explosive went off prematurely, wounding a passerby, said Kabul's deputy police chief, Mohammad Daoud Amin. He said the intended target was unclear, but that the bomber was in Kabul city centre where the explosion took place.Violence in Afghanistan has increased in recent months as insurgents fight to regain territory, trying to take advantage of the handover of the country's security from the Nato-led coalition to Afghan forcesahead of the withdrawal of all foreign combat forces at the end of 2014. Civilian casualties have spiked this spring and summer. The UN said in its mid-year report that casualties were up 23% compared with the first six months of 2012.