Kabul  - Twelve Afghan civilians including women and children were killed in two separate roadside bomb explosions in the south and south-western regions, officials said Wednesday.

Seven Afghan civilians were killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Panjwayi district of the southern province of Kandahar on Wednesday morning, Zalmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor, said.

The dead, including four women and two children, were members of the same family, Baran Khaksar, the district administrative chief, said.

Meanwhile, five other civilians were killed and eight others were wounded when a bomb blew up their passenger van in Gulistan district of the south-western province of Farah on Tuesday afternoon, Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, spokesman for police forces in the western region, said.

Confirming the incident, Rohul Amin, the provincial governor of Farah, said three of the wounded people were in critical condition in the provincial hospital.

Officials in both Kandahar and Farah blamed Taliban insurgents for the attacks.

Taliban militants, who ruled Afghanistan for five years before their government was toppled in a US-led military invasion, rely heavily on use of roadside bombs as part of their campaign against Afghan troops and more than 100,000 international soldiers, but civilians mainly become the victims of such attacks.

Homemade roadside bombs have claimed the lives of three quarters of the international soldiers killed so far this year in Afghanistan. More than 360 foreign soldiers have died in the conflict in the country in 2009, which marks it the deadliest year since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.  dpa