Afghan officials say Taliban kill about 30 after halting bus

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Taliban militants stopped a bus traveling on the Afghanistan's main highway through a wild and dangerous part of the country's south, seized about 50 people on board and slaughtered around 30 of them, officials said. A Taliban spokesman said the militia's fighters carried out the attack Sunday and that they had killed 27 Afghan army soldiers riding on the bus. However, Afghan officials said no soldiers were aboard and that the militants had killed innocent civilians. Militants stopped the bus traveling in a two-bus convoy in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, a Taliban-controlled area about 60 kilometers west of Kandahar city, said Matiullah Khan, the provincial police chief. About 50 people were taken hostage, though several were freed, he said. Officials offered varying death tolls from the attack, which occurred in an area of Afghanistan that government forces cannot safely travel to without heavy military protection. That may explain why news of the Thursday incident did not emerge until Sunday.