Lawmaker shot on bloody day in Afghanistan

NURISTAN, Afghanistan, July 5 (UPI) -- An Afghan lawmaker was gunned down on a day when 10 Taliban fighters were killed by their own bomb and others died in a disputed U.S. air strike, officials say.

Habibullah Jan, a member of the Afghan Parliament, was killed late Friday in Kandahar province, the BBC reported. He had been at an Afghan army base in an area where the Taliban is strong.

Jan was a veteran of the guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and had been a military commander in Kandahar.

Police said the Taliban members died Friday in Helmand province. They were allegedly trying to plant a roadside bomb outside Musa Qala, a town that had been a stronghold of the group until December when they were driven out, the Pak Tribune reported.

Officials in Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan said 22 civilians were killed. The U.S. military denied reports of civilian deaths, the BBC said.

The Pak Tribune reported that Zia-Ul Rahman, a district chief, said the group included women and children.

"The civilians were evacuating the district as they were told by the U.S.-led troops to do so because they wanted to launch an operation against the Taliban," he said.