Rockets from Pakistan kill Afghan woman, three children

Rockets fired from Pakistan hit a village in eastern Afghanistan killing a woman and three children, Afghan officials said yesterday, one of three cross-border attacks around the same time overnight.

Tension has mounted between the neighbours, with Pakistan saying 11 of its soldiers were killed in an airstrike by US forces operating from Afghanistan on June 10. Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened five days later to send troops across the frontier to hunt down Taliban militants based in Pakistan.

Rockets launched from about 300 metres inside Pakistani territory landed in a village near the eastern town of Khost on Saturday, close to a large Nato base, killing a woman and three children, provincial governor Arsala Jamal said. Eight people were wounded in the attack, most of them women.

"It was late evening. I was praying in the mosque when suddenly the sound of explosions started," said Aziz Khan, a driver who lives in the village. "I stopped my prayers and rushed outside ... I saw one of the rockets had hit my house.

"Inside I found three of my children dead. My wife and two sons were wounded. My wife had prepared food and gathered the kids to feed them when the rocket hit about 10 metres (yards) away from them. My brother's children and his wife were also there. Four of his kids and his wife were also wounded."

At around the same time on Saturday evening, a rocket fired from Pakistan hit a hospital in northeastern Kunar province, killing one man and wounding two others, the provincial governor said.

Also at the same time, three artillery shells fired from Pakistan landed in an Afghan army camp and three more close to a Nato base in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika, the alliance said. There were no casualties, but Nato forces returned fire.