Afghan minister survives bomb attack

A car blast targeting Afghan Minister of Power and Water has left four Afghan civilians killed and 16 others injured in Herat, Press TV has learned.

The blast went off as Ismail Khan, Minister of Power and Water was passing on a road leading to Herat’s airport. Ismail Khan survived the attack.

Meanwhile as the security deteriorates in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb killed five civilians in an area of western Farah province on Sunday, a provincial official said.

The news comes a few days after General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Western forces in Afghanistan, warned of losing Afghan war as the number of Taliban insurgent attacks has sharply increased in recent months.

A United Nations report noted early Sunday that a total of 1,500 civilians have lost their lives in war-ravaged Afghanistan from the beginning of the year to August.

An Associated Press count found a total of 174 civilians were killed in the deadly month of August.

Hundreds of other civilians have died either in US-led airstrikes or in Taliban-led insurgency across the conflict-torn country, according to the report.

The developments come more than eight years after US-led coalitions forces invaded the country under the pretext of destroying the militancy and arresting insurgent leaders.

No main militant leaders have so far been arrested or killed during the invasion.