Taliban-related insurgency has claimed the lives of 14 people, mostly civilians, in a single day Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, commonly known as the hotbed of Taliban.

Twenty-two more people including 17 civilians and five police constables were injured the same day with majority of them in Helmand province the heartland of Taliban militants, officials said.

In the bloody incident which shocked Gereshk district in the restive Helmand province at around 2:30 P.M. (1000 GMT), at least eight civilians were killed and 17 others sustained injuries as an explosive-laden car went off at a local bazaar, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told Xinhua.

Earlier, a roadside bombing set up by Taliban insurgents in the same district of Helmand province left one Afghan police dead and injured two others.

Also on the same day, the neighboring Uruzgan province experienced bloody violence as Taliban insurgents targeted a convoy of trucks supplying logistic support to the international troops based in the province. Police returned fire, leaving five militants dead.

Three policemen were also wounded in the fire exchange, provincial police chief Juma Gul Humat told Xinhua.

"The convoy was moving towards Khas Uruzgan district when came under Taliban attack and police accompanying the convoy returned fire resultantly killing five insurgents on the spot," Humat told Xinhua.

Today's violent incidents came just a day after Taliban vowed to launch its so-called spring offensive against Afghan and international troops stationed in the post-Taliban central Asian state.

In the statement read out by Taliban key military leader " Mullah Brother" to media outlet from undisclosed location on Tuesday, Taliban vowed to speed up their attacks when the weather gets warm and evict the foreign troops by force from Afghanistan.

However, Afghan Defense Ministry in a statement described the warning as mere propaganda and downplayed it.

Taliban related-violence and conflicts had left more than 8,000 people dead in Afghanistan in 2007 while nearly 300 people mostly civilians have lost their lives in the ongoing militancy in this country so far this year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2008)