Afghan bomb blasts kill three: officials

KANDAHAR: Bomb blasts in Afghanistan Friday killed three people and wounded nine, officials said, as French President Francois Hollande visited to discuss the early withdrawal of troops.

Two passengers died and three were injured when a bus struck a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province, said Daud Ahmadi, the Helmand government spokesman. "It was a bomb planted by the enemy," he said, referring to Taliban insurgents trying to bring down President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government.

In southern Uruzgan province, a roadside bomb killed a police officer and injured three others, local police spokesman Farid Ahmad Ail told AFP. And in the border town of Spin Boldak in neighbouring Kandahar province, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle wounded a policeman and two civilians, local government spokesman Jawed Faisal told AFP.

France has some 3,550 troops serving in the 130,000-strong NATO force fighting the Taliban insurgency, but Hollande has pledged to bring them home by the end of this year -- two years ahead of his Western allies. The French leader met French troops in the eastern province of Kapisa and held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.