KABUL - Suspected Islamic militants beat to death an Afghan mother and her two daughters who worked for a foreign aid group, while two policemen died in a blast blamed on the Taliban, officials said Monday.
The Taliban, whose ultra-conservative regime was ousted by a US-led military offensive in late 2001, and other Islamic radicals have stepped up attacks since the end of an unusually harsh winter in Afghanistan.
The three women were employed at the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, a microcredit organisation, in the northern province of Baghlan, a western security source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Their bodies were found Sunday with a letter attributed to a wing of the radical Hezb-e-Islami organisation, the source added. The group is led by former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is on the US most wanted terror list.
"The letter said they had been murdered as retribution for working for non-governmental organisations and for their whoredom," the source said.
Provincial police chief Fazeluding Ayar confirmed the badly beaten bodies of three women were discovered. "We have arrested four men who are suspects in this brutal act. The investigation is ongoing," he said.
The police chief named two of the victims as Mehboba and Bibi Shirin and said the third has yet to be identified. The security source said: "It was a mother and two daughters who all worked for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee."
Afghan officials said last week that 17 Hezb-e-Islami militants had surrendered to authorities in the southeast, but it was not known if the two events were linked.
The discovery of the women's bodies was unusual for the relatively safe north of Afghanistan, as most of the violence is confined to the Taliban-infested southern areas.
Two policemen died and three were injured Monday when a suspected landmine blast tore through their vehicle in Shahwali Kot, just outside southern Kandahar city, the former stronghold of the ousted Islamic regime, officials said.
The policemen were returning to their headquarters after a routine patrol, city police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told AFP. He blamed Taliban militants for the attack.
Simultaneously, a suspected bomb exploded near a US civil-military base in Kandahar but caused no damage or casualties, Salangi said.
Earlier an official said Afghan national army troops had killed one Taliban militant in southern Uruzgan province on Friday.
Two militants were arrested last Wednesday in Zabul and Uruzgan provinces while the other four were arrested in Uruzgan two days later, defence ministry spokesman General Mohammed Zahir Azimi added.
Meanwhile, the US military said Monday six insurgents were captured in Kandahar after they attacked an Afghan police patrol.
The men were seized by police with the help of US troops, it said in a statement.
No police or coalition members were hurt in the attack, the statement said, without giving further details.
Suspected militants also fired up to five rockets over a police headquarters in the eastern province of Laghman late Saturday but there were no injuries, a provincial police official said.
More than 18,000 US-led troops are in Afghanistan hunting militants along with the national army.
05/02/2005 16:07 GMT