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   KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A bus collided on Friday with the wreckage of a truck that was attacked by Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, killing 30 people aboard the bus in a fiery crash, officials said.

   The battered truck was left in the middle of a narrow road on the border of Helmand and Kandahar provinces for several days after insurgents opened fire on it. Police considered the area too dangerous to enter, the officials said.

   Before sunrise Friday, the bus smashed into the truck and both vehicles burst into flames, badly burning many of the bus passengers, said Abdul Razaq, the provincial police chief of Kandahar.

   Razaq said eight passengers were injured. Omar Zawak, the governor's spokesman in Helmand province, put the injury total at 11. Both said the casualties included men, women and children.

   The bus began its journey in the capital of Helmand province and was scheduled to stop in Kandahar city, then travel north to Kabul, the Afghan capital, Razaq said.

   KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Officials say a helicopter owned by an Afghan company has made an emergency landing in a Taliban-controlled area of eastern Afghanistan, and the insurgents took all nine people who were aboard hostage.

   A district administrator in the area says the helicopter landed on Sunday afternoon in strong winds and rain in a village of Logar province, southeast of Kabul and about 30 kilometers (or 20 miles) from the Pakistan border.

   Hamidullah Hamid said on Monday that the Taliban captured all nine aboard the aircraft and took them from the area. He says the crew and passengers are all civilian.

   Logar deputy police chief, Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai, says the helicopter is owned by the Khaorasan company. He didn't know what cargo it was carrying or where it was heading.

   PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The Pakistani Taliban have denied any role in the bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed at least three people and injured more than 140.

   The group's spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, denied involvement in a telephone call with The Associated Press on Tuesday. He spoke from an undisclosed location.

   The main focus of the Pakistani Taliban has been a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani government because of its alliance with the United States and to enforce Islamic law in the country.

   But the group has threatened attacks in the U.S. as well, and claimed responsibility for a failed car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010.

   The Times Square attacker, Faisal Shahzad, has admitted to getting training from the Pakistani Taliban in the country's tribal region.