KABUL, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Friday strongly condemned killing of eight civilians by Taliban insurgent group in eastern Afghan province of Logar on Thursday.
"(The) ISAF strongly condemns the murders of eight Afghan workers on their way to work in Logar province yesterday. The Taliban forced the workers from their vehicle, then executed them, " the ISAF forces said in a press release.
The victims were working in an ISAF base in Logar's provincial capital Pul-e-Alam city, 60 km south of Kabul.
"This senseless and brutal killing of eight innocent men is unconscionable and barbaric. They were simply on the way to work to provide for their families," said the ISAF commander Gen. Joseph F. Dunford in the statement.
"I want to express my deepest sympathies to the families of the men who were brutally murdered. ISAF remains committed to bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. The oppression, fear, murder, and intimidation campaign of the Taliban has no place in Afghanistan's future," Dunford added.
In a separate incident, on Thursday, five children and one woman were killed and one woman was seriously wounded when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off in a Taliban home in Mata Khan district of the eastern province of Paktika.
"A Taliban commander named Abdullah had collected an IED and left it inside his house. He had planned to use it to target Afghan security forces. It shortly detonated when the children, aged three to seven, began playing with it," the provincial government said in a statement on Friday, adding all the victims were Abdullah's family members.
The Taliban has intensified attacks since they launched annual spring offensive late April.
A total of 2,500 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in acts of terrorism and violence from Jan. 1 to mid-June, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) said recently.
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