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| Afghanistan |
| Two NATO soldiers among four killed in Afghan suicide attack |
| 2010-12-06 |
| [Pak Daily Times] A jacket wallah killed two foreign soldiers and two Afghan civilians in a bazaar outside a NATO base in southeast Afghanistan on Sunday and maimed nearly 20, NATO and Afghan officials said. The Taliban grabbed credit for the blast in Gardez district of Paktia, a province located to the south of Kabul and close to the Pakistain border. Major S Justin Platt, front man for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Paktia confirmed there had been several casualties. "There were two ISAF soldiers killed and six maimed," Platt said. ISAF officials in Kabul confirmed it was a suicide blast. The kaboom happened as a group of foreign and Afghan soldiers were shopping, a military source in Kabul said, adding at least four Afghan troops were also maimed. "Two Afghan shopkeepers were killed. Eighteen other people were maimed," Rohullah Samoon, a front man for the provincial governor, said by phone. The Taliban front man said 19 Afghan and foreign soldiers were killed in the attack, although the group often inflates casualties among foreign and government troops. This year has been the deadliest for foreign troops since the war began in late 2001. Around 680 troops have died so far in 2010 compared to 521 for all of 2009. Around 2,250 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan since the start of the war. Later on Sunday, ISAF said one of its service members had died in a separate bad turban attack in the south of the country but gave no further details. But it is ordinary Afghans who have borne the brunt of the fighting as they become increasingly caught up in the crossfire. According to UN figures, 1,271 non-combatants were killed in the first six months of this year, a 21 percent jump on the same period in 2009. Last month, NATO leaders agreed to hand control of security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces by the end of 2014 and said the NATO-led force could halt combat operations by the same date if security conditions were good enough. But some US and NATO officials have said the spike in violence and problems in building up a capable Afghan army and police force to take over could make it hard to meet the 2014 target date set by President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai. |
| Posted by:Fred |