Three Afghans and soldiers killed in attacks
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KABUL, SEP 30 -
Taliban attacks including a suicide car bomb killed three international soldiers and as many Afghans in the troubled country's south, the alliance and Afghan authorities said Thursday.
The NATO-led soldiers were killed in separate attacks -- two in homemade bomb explosions and the third in a firefight with insurgents, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in separate statements.
The latest deaths bring to 544 the number of foreign soldiers to die in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org website. The 2009 toll was 521.
ISAF did not disclose the nationalities of the deceased soldiers but most troops deployed in the south, heartland of the Taliban insurgency, are American, Canadian and British.
In a separate incident also involving ISAF troops a suicide bomber detonated a bomb-laden sedan near an alliance convoy, killing three Afghan civilians nearby, Afghan officials said.
ISAF confirmed the attack and said none of its soldiers had been injured.
The force said it had evacuated a dozen Afghans injured in the blast outside the troubled city of Kandahar, which was the capital of the Taliban's regime which ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
NATO and the United States have more than 152,000 soldiers in Afghanistan fighting the insurgency, which has intensified to its most virulent since the Islamists' regime was overthrown.
The war has gathered pace every passing year since it was launched by remnants of the Taliban toppled from power in a US-led invasion in 2001.
Commander of the foreign forces, US General David Petraeus, said a combined Afghan-coalition force of around 7,000 troops was involved in a new push against the Taliban in the southern city of Kandahar and its surrounds.
Operation Dragon Strike aimed to exert "substantial additional pressure" on the insurgents, Petraeus told AFP this week.
It is the latest phase of Operation Hamkari, concentrating on Kandahar and the surrounding areas of Zhari, Panjawyi and Arghandab, which he said had been safe havens for the Taliban for more than five years.
The coalition and Afghan forces have stepped up attacks against insurgents since the start of the year. NATO and US military commanders say the surge in deaths has been because of the increased military operations in the troubled country.
Washington has also increased drone attacks on militant hideouts on the Pakistani side of the border where Taliban and Al-Qaeda activists are believed to be in hiding.
ISAF said its aircraft had entered Pakistani airspace early Thursday in self defence and killed "several armed individuals" after the crews believed they had been fired at from the ground.
After striking what was believed to be an insurgent group, "the aircraft received what the crews assessed as effective small arms fire from individuals just across the border in Pakistan," ISAF said in a statement.
"Operating in self defence, the ISAF aircraft entered into Pakistani airspace killing several armed individuals," it said.
Pakistan closed its border to NATO supply convoys in reaction to what was the fourth such cross-border incursion this week.
Posted on: 2010-09-30 10:25
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