Roadside bomb kills eight U.S. troops in Afghanistan

26 May 2011 22:16

Source: reuters // Reuters

* Coalition deaths rise during Taliban "spring offensive"

* ISAF service member killed in helicopter crash (Recasts with identity of victims)

KABUL, May 26 (Reuters) - Eight U.S. troops were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Thursday in the deadliest single attack on foreign forces in a month, the U.S. military said.

Afghan violence has surged in recent weeks as Taliban-led insurgents ramped up their long-expected "spring offensive."

U.S. commanders had warned a surge in violence was likely, with militants hitting back after NATO-led forces claimed parts of the insurgency's southern stronghold over the last year.

Thursday's bomb was the worst individual attack on foreign troops since eight U.S. service personnel and a U.S. contractor were shot dead by an Afghan air force pilot at a military airport in Kabul on April 27.

The Pentagon and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan initially said seven troops were killed on Thursday, but later added that an eighth died.

Separately, another ISAF service member was killed earlier on Thursday when a helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said. The cause of that crash was under investigation.

The nearly decade-old war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular in the United States.

Of the roughly 2,480 foreign troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 1,580 have been U.S. nationals.

News of the latest killings came as lawmakers in Congress narrowly lost a vote that would have required U.S. President Barack Obama to start planning for an accelerated withdrawal.

Foreign troops are preparing to start a gradual reduction in forces from July, handing over lead security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

But critics of Obama's war strategy in Congress are calling for a faster drawdown, particularly in the wake of the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan.

Civilian and military casualties reached record levels in 2010, the worst year of the war since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.

A total of 711 foreign troops were killed last year and 2011 is expected to follow a similar pattern, with casualty tolls rising during the spring and summer.

Almost 200 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far in 2011. (Reporting by Paul Tait in Kabul and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Andrew Dobbie and Laura MacInnis)

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Suicide bombers launch twin Afghanistan attacks

30 May 2011 11:16

Source: reuters // Reuters
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A general view shows the scene after suicide blasts near an Italian-run base in Herat May 30, 2011. REUTERS/Mohammad Shoib

By Jalil Ahmad

HERAT, Afghanistan, May 30 (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents led by suicide bombers launched attacks on an Italian military base and near a government building in the main city in Afghanistan's west on Monday, killing four people and wounding dozens, officials said.

The simultaneous attacks were launched in the centre of Herat, near a Transport Department building and bus stop, and outside the Italian base on the city's outskirts, Herat provincial police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said.

Dawood Saba, the governor of Herat province, said a suicide bomber in a small truck blew himself up at the entrance of the Italian-run base and that between two and four other attackers were still fighting from within a building nearby.

Another senior police official, Ghulam Farooq, said 37 people were wounded in the attacks. All those killed and wounded were civilians, he said.

However, Reuters pictures taken at the base showed one serviceman in an Italian uniform bleeding from a head wound next to the rubble of a partially destroyed wall.

The attacks were especially worrying because normally peaceful Herat, near the border with Iran, is one of seven areas where a gradual handover of security responsibility from foreign forces to Afghans will begin in July.

That handover is part of a process that will lead to all foreign combat troops leaving Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Some U.S. lawmakers and analysts have questioned the wisdom of that timetable with violence still at such high levels.



Saqib said it appeared most of the dead and wounded were from the attack in the centre of the city.

Pictures taken outside the Italian-run base, which houses a joint civilian and military Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), suggested the truck bomb had destroyed part of an outer wall, a gate and a guardhouse.

External damage was severe, with rows of burnt-out bicycles and cars, and the windows of shops shattered for some distance. Ambulances rushed people to the hospital.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said four suicide bombers launched the attacks, although the militant Islamists often exaggerate claims involving attacks against foreign and Afghan targets.

Italian troops form the bulk of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the area but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties from ISAF.

A spokesman for ISAF in Kabul said the force was aware of reports of the attack and was looking into them.



INSURGENTS HIT BACK

Violence has spiked across Afghanistan since the Taliban announced at the beginning of May the start of a spring offensive.

The Afghan government and security forces and foreign military targets have been singled out in increasingly bold assaults in cities across the country as militants attempt to show they retain to the capacity to launch major strikes.

On Saturday, the powerful chief of police for all of northern Afghanistan was among seven people killed in an attack in the main city of Takhar province. [ID:nL3E7GS06H]

Initial reports said that blast had been carried out by a suicide bomber dressed as an Afghan policeman but Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate for Security (NDS), said on Monday that may not have been the case.

The NDS said in a statement subsequent investigations suggested explosives had been hidden in a corridor outside the Takhar governor's office and were detonated remotely.

U.S. commanders had warned to expect a surge in violence as insurgents attempted to hit back after U.S.-led ISAF troops and Afghan forces made major gains in operations in the Taliban heartland in the south over the past 12 months.

Italy has about 3,880 troops serving in Afghanistan, the majority of them in the west, making it the fifth-largest contributor to the NATO force.

(Additional reporting by Sharafuddin Sharafyar in HERAT and Hamid Shalizi in KABUL; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)