Two children die as Afghan suicide bomber hits convoy

A SUICIDE bomber attacked a convoy in southern Afghanistan today, killing five civilians, including two children, as well as one soldier from the US-led coalition.

Police in Helmand province said the lone bomber, who was on foot, struck as the convoy was passing through a market area in the town of Gereshk this morning.

Two shopkeepers also died, and four more civilians were wounded.

Initially reports said ten civilians had been killed, but police said later that city officials on the scene had passed on mistaken information.

The blast came a day after a shooting incident in which two soldiers from the US-led coalition were fatally wounded in Helmand. The coalition said a third soldier was injured.

Helmand borders Kandahar province, where hundreds of Nato and Afghan troops backed by warplanes this week mounted an operation to clear militants from a fertile valley from which they could have threatened Kandahar, the largest city on the south of Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, Corporal Sarah Bryant became the first British female soldier to be killed in Afghanistan when she died in a roadside bomb blast along with three SAS reservists.