Taliban attacks, blasts kill dozens

The Afghan Taliban killed a Supreme Court official, a dozen mine clearers and several national and foreign soldiers but also suffered heavy losses from intensifying violence ahead of the withdrawal of most international troops in the next two weeks.

In Kabul yesterday, a bomb ripped through a bus carrying soldiers in Kabul, killing at least six of them, mangling the vehicle and sending a column of black smoke over the capital.

"A suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives at the door of a bus carrying army soldiers," said Hashmat Stanekzai, a spokesman for Kabul police chief.

Earlier gunmen shot dead senior Supreme Court official Atiqullah Raoufi as he left his home in the city.

The Taliban, ousted from power by US-backed Afghan forces in 2001, claimed responsibility, but did not say why it had killed him. The hardline Islamist insurgents run their own courts in parts of the country and consider the official judiciary to be corrupt.

Fatalities and injuries among Afghan security forces and civilians peaked this year to the highest point since the US-led war began in 2001, as foreign forces rapidly withdrew most of their troops from the interior of mountainous nation. About 5,000 Afghan police and soldiers have been killed, and more than 1,500 civilians were killed in the first half of the year. A rump of about 13,000 foreign soldiers will remain in Afghanistan next year, down from a peak of more than 130,000.

Fighting has extended long beyond the traditional summer season, with the Afghan government also inflicting heavy casualties on the Taliban. The army and police say they killed more than 50 militants nationwide in the past 48 hours.

Just outside the city and close to the U.S.-run Bagram airfield, the Taliban detonated a roadside bomb on Friday night, hitting a convoy of foreign troops and killing two soldiers.

The blast left a 3 metre (10 feet)-long blackened fissure in the road, a Reuters witness said. Helicopters buzzed overhead on Saturday morning.