KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official says.
The families of the dead received the money Saturday at the governor's office, Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai said. Each wounded person received $11,000, and that they were told the money was from President Barack Obama, he said. Community elder Jan Agha has confirmed the same figures.
U.S. officials did not immediate respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, a bomb exploded as a foot patrol of Afghan and NATO forces was passing by in the south of the country, killing eight Afghans and one international service member, an Afghan official said Sunday.
The group was patrolling through Arghandab district in Kandahar province late Saturday when it was caught in the blast, said Shah Mohammad, the district administrator. Arghandab is a farming region just outside Kandahar city that has long been a bed-down area for Taliban insurgents. It was one of a number of communities around Kandahar city that were targeted in a 2010 sweep to oust the insurgency from the area.
The Afghan dead included three police officers, four members of the Afghan "local police" — a government-sponsored militia force — and one translator, Mohammad said.
NATO reported earlier Sunday that one of its service members was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Saturday but did not provide additional details. It was not clear if this referred to the same incident, as NATO usually waits for individual coalition nations to confirm the details of deaths of their troops.
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