A Taliban bomb maker, his wife and two children were killed as his device exploded prematurely in his home in Afghanistan’s northern Faryab province on Monday, Provincial Police spokesman, Abdul-Karim Yurash said on Wednesday.

“A Taliban mine maker, Mullah Sadrudin, was making a mine in his home in Garzewan district on Monday but the device exploded suddenly killing himself, his wife and two of his children on the spot,” Yurash said.

The two children killed were five and eight years old respectively.

The bomb had been intended to be used as a roadside bomb to target security convoys in the restive province, the official said via telephone from provincial capital Maimana.

Taliban militants, who are in control of parts of Faryab province and largely relying on suicide and roadside bombing, have not commented.

Similarly, Afghan authorities on Wednesday said that 56 drug-narcotics-related cases were exposed in the country within the past one month.

“The Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) together with the detective Afghan security organisation have cracked 56 drug cases, involving 81 people, including two women during the Afghan month of Mizan (Sept. 23 to Oct. 22) across in the country,” official said.

The Counter-Narcotics Criminal Justice Task Force of Afghanistan (CJTF) said this in a statement.

The cases were handed over to the Central Narcotics Tribunal (CNT), a special Afghan court for jurisdiction of major drug cases, the statement noted.

Huge drugs and ban-chemical materials, including 114 kg heroin, 13 kg morphine, 532 kg opium, 869 kg hashish and 1 kg methamphetamine, were also seized over the period, the statement noted.

The CNPA and other security forces also confiscated 11 vehicles, three motorcycles, one gun, 86 mobile phones as well as currencies totaling about 13,400 dollars within the month.

In addition, an appellant court of the CNT has sentenced 27 defendants, including a woman, to different ranges of imprisonment over the period, the statement said. (NAN)

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