A roadside bomb has killed five people in southern Afghanistan, including four children. The other victim was a woman.
Local officials in Kandahar province say the blast occurred in the Spin Boldak district Friday as the five were on their way home from a shrine.
Afghan civilians have increasingly been caught in the middle as violence rises amid an influx of U.S. and other foreign forces fighting the Taliban. A United Nations report this week said the number of civilians killed in war-related violence reached its highest level last year since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
In a separate development, a rocket hit the central part of the capital Kabul Friday, near Western embassies. Police rushed to the scene, but no other information was immediately available.