Roadside Bombing in Afghanistan Kills 8, Mostly Children

A roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday killed at least eight civilians, including six children.

The victims were all from a single family, according to Helmand police spokesman Zaman Hamdard. The family had just left the southern district to Greshk when the bomb hit their car, Hamdard added. Two more family members were wounded, he said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but both the Taliban and the Islamic State militants are active in the province.

On Tuesday, the Taliban sent a three-member technical team to Kabul to monitor the release of Taliban prisoners as part of a peace deal signed by the insurgents and the U.S. at the end of February. That deal calls for the Afghan government to release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners and for the Taliban to free 1,000 government personnel and Afghan troops they hold captive. The deal is also supposed to be followed by intra-Afghan peace talks that would include the Taliban.

Kabul said Wednesday that discussions between the government and the Taliban’s technical team would continue under the observation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, though it was not known when the prisoner release process would start. Kabul had previously announced its 21-member team for peace negotiations with the Taliban. It also remains unclear when those negotiations would begin.