KABUL, Afghanistan, June 12, (Agencies): Five Afghan police and two NATO servicemen died Saturday in separate roadside bomb blasts in Afghanistan, which has seen an uptick in violence in recent weeks.
Provincial Police Chief Sher Mohammed Zazai said the policemen were riding in a vehicle that struck a bomb in the Khakrez district of Kandahar province. International forces are ramping up security to bolster the government and curb criminal and insurgent activity in the province, the spiritual birthplace of the Taleban.
On Wednesday, 56 people were killed and 24 others were wounded when a 13-year-old boy detonated his vest of explosives at a wedding celebration in a village near Kandahar, Zazai said.
NATO said an American serviceman died in a roadside bomb attack in northern Afghanistan, and another coalition soldier was killed in an explosion in the east. Poland’s Defense Ministry said the victim was a Polish soldier. The ministry said eight other Polish soldiers were wounded in the incident about 8 miles (12 kms) from their base in Ghazni, the provincial capital of Ghazni province.
So far this month, 38 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan, including 27 Americans. On Friday, militants killed four Afghan construction workers as they were returning home from work. The Ministry of Interior said the workers were shot in Mata Khan district of Paktika province. Their bodies were recovered Friday by policemen who were patrolling the area.

Separately, more than three dozen school girls were treated after becoming ill from suspected poisoning at their high school in Ghazni province, also in eastern Afghanistan.
“More then 40 girls were poisoned inside their school. They are hospitalized, but none of them have life-threatening conditions,” said Mohammad Ismail Ibrahamzia, director of the hospital in Ghazni city.
He said the girls were vomiting and could not stand on their feet when they arrived at the hospital, but they were in stable condition after treatment. There have been similar cases of illnesses at schools around Afghanistan. Some suspect militants are spraying schools with poison gas because they oppose education for girls.
A UN committee will visit Afghanistan this month to consider the removal of militants from its terrorism blacklist, an envoy said Saturday, as alliance forces counted the cost of a deadly week.
Staffan de Mistura said the visit would come at a “crucial period” after the recent “peace jirga”, or conference, in Afghanistan, which produced a 16-point resolution that included a call for removing militant leaders from the list.
“The review is due by the end of the month,” de Mistura, the United Nations’ special representative to the country, told a news briefing in the Afghan capital Kabul.
However, he said its report might be delayed because it was “linked to a very delicate and important period in Afghanistan”. This month’s “peace jirga” advised the government to seek the removal of names — including that of Mullah Mohammad Omar — from the UN Security Council blacklist compiled after the September 11 2001 attacks on the US.
Omar was supreme leader of the Taleban during their 1996 to 2001 rule of Afghanistan.
The list designated as terrorists Taleban and al-Qaeda leaders who were based in Afghanistan at the time, and helped to provide a UN-sanctioned justification for the US-led invasion of the country in November 2001.
“The momentum of the peace jirga, which was a success, needs to be maintained,” de Mistura told reporters in his Saturday briefing.
“Some of the people on the list may not even be alive any more. The list could be completely outdated,” he added, but stressed that the decision to remove names from the blacklist would be up to the Security Council.