Kandahar: Insurgents fired a rocket that hit a NATO helicopter carrying the governor of a key southern Afghan province, but no one was injured, officials said.

A series of clashes, airstrikes and bomb blasts elsewhere in the country killed 10 militants and four civilians yesterday.

Helmand Gov. Ghulab Mangal and a delegation of British officials were about to land in the provincial town of Musa Qala when an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade struck the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, Mangal told The Associated Press.

The grenade "hit the tail end" of the chopper, said Maj. Martin O Donnell, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"There was a minor damage to shaft and the rear blade," O Donnell said. "The helicopter landed under control" at a nearby NATO base.

Mangal and other officials were to inaugurate a new mosque in Musa Qala, a town that lies in Helmand at the heart of the country's opium poppy-producing region.

US, British and Afghan troops pushed Taliban fighters out of Musa Qala late last year after the militants overran the area in early 2007 and held it for 10 months.

The delegation returned to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah in another helicopter, Mangal said.

Separately, a roadside blast hit a vehicle in eastern Paktia province yesterday, killing three civilians, government spokesman Ghamai Mohammadi said.

A bomb placed on a bicycle exploded as a police vehicle passed by in Kandahar city in the south, killing a 10-year-old boy and injuring another civilian, police officer Mohammad Nabi said. No police casualties were reported.

Source : PTI