KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan 14, (Agencies): Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb that killed seven civilians on a highway in southern Afghanistan on Friday, a local official said. The seven, all taxi drivers, were detained by a group of insurgents while heading to the district of Arghandab in Zabul province, said Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, spokesman for the provincial governor. The men eventually managed to negotiate their release, but as they drove away, the militants detonated a roadside bomb by remote control, killing all seven, Rasoolyar said. It was unclear why the men were targeted, the spokesman said, adding that none of the seven worked for the authorities or were involved in any government activities. The Taleban often target Afghan civilians who work for the government or with foreign military or civilian organizations.

The volatile province of Zabul lies just north of Kandahar, a traditional Taleban stronghold which along with neighboring Helmand has been the focus of much of the fighting in recent months.
Nato bolstered its forces last year with more than 30,000 additional troops, mostly American, who have focused on cracking down on the Taleban in southern Afghanistan.
Nato said on Friday it had detained several suspected insurgents in the city of Kandahar a day earlier during an operation targeting Taleban leaders believed responsible for assassination attempts against Afghan government officials. The suspects were arrested during a search of a compound in the city, the alliance said in a statement.
The Taleban is to drop its opposition to the education of girls in Afghanistan, the country’s education minister has told British media.

Farooq Wardak said in an interview with the TES (Times Education Supplement) that a “cultural change” meant the Taleban were no longer opposed to girls going to school. He said an agreement had been worked out in discussions with the Taleban.
Afghan women were banned from working or getting an education under the Taleban regime which was overthrown in the 2001 US-led invasion of the country.
Wardak told the TES: “It is attitudinal change, it is behavioural change, it is cultural change.
“What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taleban is that they are no more opposing education and also girls’ education.”
He added: “I hope, Inshallah, soon there will be a peaceful negotiation, a meaningful negotiation with our own opposition and that will not compromise at all the basic human rights and basic principles which have been guiding us to provide quality and balanced education to our people.”
The minister, who spoke to the TES at the Education World Forum in London, claimed there had been significant shifts in attitude towards education since the Taleban was toppled and insisted that they would not be reversed.

“In the deepest pockets of our society, not only the Taleban, there was not very friendly behaviour with education,” he said.
“That is the reason that in many provinces of Afghanistan we do not have either male or female teacher.
“During the Taleban era the percentage of girls of the one million students that we had was zero percent. The percentage of female teachers was zero per cent.
“Today 38 percent of our students and 30 percent of our teachers are female.”
However, he conceded that Afghanistan had a huge task ahead. In more than 400 districts and urban centres in Afghanistan, 200 still have no girls enrolled in high school, he said.