KABUL:Taleban insurgents killed at least 20 people in a series of gun and suicide attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday, underlining worsening security as US-led Nato forces end their combat mission in the country.
A suicide blast wrecked an Afghan military bus in Kabul, killing at least seven soldiers, while a senior court official was assassinated in the city and 12 Afghan mine clearance workers were gunned down in the south.
Two Nato soldiers were also killed on Friday in an attack in the east of Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement, without identifying their nationality.
The Taleban claimed responsibility for all the attacks.
The latest bout of violence comes ahead of the official end of Natos war against the Taleban on December 31 after 13 years of fighting that has failed to thwart the insurgency.
The bloodshed has wrecked claims that the insurgency is weakening and highlighted fears that Afghanistan could trip into a spiral of violence as the US-led military presence declines.
Natos force in Afghanistan will change on December 31 from a combat mission to a support role, with troop numbers cut to about 12,500 down from a peak of 130,000 in 2010.
On Saturday, casualties were rushed to hospital after a suicide bomber on foot detonated explosives next to the military bus in central Kabul.
Six members of the ANA (Afghan National Army) have been martyred, defence ministry deputy spokesman Dawlat Waziri said. Many other people were taken to hospitals.
The Taleban have often targeted buses that take government and military personnel to work every morning in Kabul, despite efforts by security forces to provide protection for the vulnerable vehicles.
Earlier in the day, Taleban gunmen shot dead a senior Supreme Court official in the city as he left his home.
Insurgents also killed 12 mine clearance workers in the restive southern province of Helmand.
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack as unjustifiable and un-Islamic.
The Taleban have targeted de-mining projects before, beheading seven workers in the western province of Farah in 2011.
On Thursday, a Taleban suicide bomber blew himself up among the audience at a French Cultural Centre in Kabul, killing one German national and wounding 15 others.
Other recent targets have included foreign guesthouses, a female Afghan member of parliament, a British embassy convoy and three members of a South African family killed when their compound was attacked.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said on a visit to Kabul a week ago that the upsurge showed that the international community must not waver in its support for a stable, secure, and prosperous Afghanistan. Agencies
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