Dozens killed, including 6 U.S. troops, in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan

KABUL — A series of fresh attacks across Afghanistan in the past two days killed more than a dozen people, including six U.S. troops, officials said.

The American service members lost their lives when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle Sunday in Wardak province, which lies just west of Kabul and has recently become one of the country’s most dangerous areas. The Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack, one of the bloodiest incidents in months for U.S. forces.

Also Sunday, 23 Afghan civilians were killed by multiple blasts in the Arghistan district of southern Kandahar.

In another attack, five Afghan police officers were killed by remote-control bomb in Bamian province, regarded as the most secure part of Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.

There were three separate attacks in the city of Kandahar on Monday, by 14 attackers. Three police officers and six civilians were killed when the police headquarters and a local market were targeted. The assailants were also killed.

A top Afghan prosecutor, Mohammed Ali Ahmadi, was fatally shot by gunmen in a separate attack in restive southern Ghazni, officials said.

Also Monday, U.S. and Afghan officials condemned what NATO forces called the “Taliban’s public execution of a woman” outside Kabul. In a video circulating throughout the capital, a man is shown firing his weapon at a woman accused of adultery. The scene, which recalled the public executions during Taliban rule, was carried out by insurgents, according to U.S. officials.

“Let’s be clear, this wasn’t justice, this was murder and an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty,” said Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. “The Taliban’s continued brutality toward innocent civilians, particularly women, must be condemned in the strongest terms.”

Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.