US says 4 American troops killed in Afghanistan

 Tue Sep 8, 2009, 10:56 am ET

KABUL –

The U.S. military says four American service members have been killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan.

U.S. forces spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias says they were caught up in "a complex attack" Tuesday morning in Kunar province, which borders Pakistan. She did not provide further details.

Afghan officials said they did not have information on the incident.

KABUL (AP) —

The NATO-led force acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that Afghan civilians were killed in a German-ordered airstrike last week on two stolen fuel tankers, and the top commander appointed a team to investigate.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that her government won't accept "premature judgments" about the incident. Germany's military has been criticized for calling in Friday's strike by a U.S. jet on two hijacked tanker trucks in Kunduz province and for initially insisting that it appeared only militants were killed. Local officials have said civilians were among more than 50 killed, but there have been conflicting claims over how many.

A statement from the NATO-led force said Tuesday that commanders originally believed the tankers were surrounded only by Taliban insurgents, but that a subsequent review showed "civilians also were killed and injured in the strike." Previously, officials had said only that civilians may have been wounded.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, appointed a Canadian major general to lead the investigation. A U.S. Air Force officer and a German officer are also on the investigating team, the NATO-led force announced. The make-up of the investigative team is important because the incident involved both German and U.S. forces.

Taliban fighters have used attacks like the one Friday in northern Kunduz province to rally support among villagers angry at international forces.

McChrystal has said military officials could see about 120 people around the tankers when the airstrikes were launched. German officials have said they believed all were (Taliban fighters), but the decision to launch airstrikes appeared to run counter to directives from McChrystal to draw back from conflicts rather than risk civilian deaths.

Merkel acknowledged the possibility that civilians were harmed and that "we will not gloss over anything" when results of the investigation are clear. But she told parliament that the identities of those hit were still unclear because of contradictory reports.

"We will not accept premature judgments," she said. "I say this very clearly after what I have experienced in the last few days: I will not tolerate that from whoever it may be, at home as well as abroad."

She told parliament weeks before national elections that she regrets deeply if any civilians were harmed.

However, she also delivered a robust defense of a military mission that is unpopular at home.

The NATO announcement came the same day a Taliban car bomber attacked an international convoy near the entrance to the military airport in Kabul. The blast killed at least three civilians, Afghan officials said.

No foreign forces were killed in the attack, U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, the third major attack by insurgents in the capital in four weeks. The Belgian Defense Ministry said one Belgian soldier was seriously wounded and that three others were lightly wounded.

The chief of Kabul's criminal investigation department, Abdul Ghafar Sayadzada, said three Afghan civilians were killed and six wounded.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said a suicide car bomber rammed into a NATO convoy and destroyed three Land Cruisers.

The early morning blast rattled windows more than a mile (1.5 kilometers) away and flames continued to shoot out from burning vehicles more than an hour later. Small blasts could be heard, likely from ammunition exploding inside the vehicles.

A witness said he saw the car ram into a line of SUVs.

"I saw three or four Land Cruisers for the foreigners just in front of the gate ... then there was a car and it hit them then blew up," said Humayun, who watched the attack from his nearby shop.

U.S. forces spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician confirmed an explosion south of the airport, but said he did not have details. The military airport used by U.S. and other international forces is right next to Kabul's civilian airport, but they have separate entrances.

Meanwhile, Taliban fighters ambushed a police convoy in the village of Dahna Ghori in Baghlan province Monday evening, Gov. Mohammad Akbar Barakzai said Tuesday, and police killed 12 Taliban in the resulting firefight.

Police suffered no casualties in the ambush, Barakzai said. But he said as the convoy was returning to Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital, it was hit by a bomb.

Barakzai said one policeman was killed and 17 were wounded in the explosion, two of them seriously.

Three dead in suicide attack on Kabul airbase

by Lynne O'Donnell Lynne O'donnell – Tue Sep 8, 2009, 5:01 am ET

KABUL (AFP) –

A suicide bomber attacked a NATO convoy outside Kabul's military airport Tuesday, killing three civilians and wounding four foreign soldiers in a fiery vehicle blast claimed by the resurgent Taliban.

The attack, which came with Afghanistan on edge over the marathon count from disputed elections, wounded six Afghan civilians along with three US soldiers and one from Belgium, officials said.

"It was a suicide attack outside the main gate of the military base at the airport," said Colonel Koziel Bart, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Bart said the airbase had been sealed off. Military air traffic resumed after an hour-long suspension.

Jan Agha, a shopkeeper in the area, said: "I was sitting in my shop when I saw three SUV vehicles heading towards the ISAF airport."

The first two were ISAF military jeeps, he said, adding that the third sped up and followed them as they approached the base's gate.

"As they got close to the (security) concrete blocks outside the gate a huge explosion took place. I think the explosion was in the third vehicle," he said.

Abdul Maruf, another witness who lives near the site, said he heard a big explosion as he was getting ready to go to work.

"I came out and saw fire and big, thick black smoke," he said.

"I saw people wounded, most of them with bloody clothes, some with blood on their faces. Everyone helped them, put them in cars and rushed them to hospitals. Then we were told to leave the area."

Nearby, a white sedan was nose-down in a drainage channel, its doors open.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, claiming the attack, told AFP by telephone that 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds) of explosives were used.

Witnesses said the shell of the vehicle used by the suicide attacker was still burning, spewing a huge cloud of black smoke into the blue autumn sky.

Soldiers cordoned off the area, as fire engines and military and civilian ambulances rushed to the scene.

"At 8:19 am (0321 GMT) a suicide attacker detonated his SUV vehicle near the eastern gate of the airport, killing three civilian Afghans who were passing by and wounding six other civilians," said Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, Kabul's criminal investigations police chief.

One of the injured was in critical condition, he said.

Earlier the Interior Ministry said two Afghans had died and two of the six wounded were critical.

"The place where the blast took place is close to the car park for people working at the airbase, which is why around 20 vehicles were also damaged," Sayedzada told reporters at the blast site.

The latest attack came weeks after a massive suicide car bomb attack on ISAF's Kabul headquarters, just ahead of the elections on August 20 that were overshadowed by Taliban intimidation.

The August 15 attack killed seven Afghan civilians, underscoring the increasingly brazen nature of the Taliban threat as the Islamist militia wages a fierce insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government.

President Hamid Karzai is edging towards the 50-percent mark needed to avoid a run-off ballot against former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, according to the latest results from last month's election.

But Karzai is dogged by allegations of rampant ballot-stuffing and intimidation by his loyalists, and Western nations are set for a conference later this year to thrash out a way forward in the shattered nation.

Sayedzada meanwhile confirmed an attack on Camp Phoenix, an ISAF base outside Kabul, on the dangerous highway to the former Taliban capital of Jalalabad in southern Afghanistan.

"The two attackers were eliminated. There were no casualties," he said.

Canada confirms two soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Mon Sep 7, 2009, 10:56 am ET

MONTREAL (AFP) –

 Canada on Monday confirmed that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan by a roadside bomb that struck their armored vehicle.

Five other Canadian troops were injured in the same explosion Sunday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement.

"The sacrifices of these soldiers will not be forgotten and this tragic event will not deter us from continuing to help Afghans rebuild their country," Harper said.

Harper sent condolences to the families of corporal Jean-François Drouin and Major Yannick Pepin. They were from a brigade based in Valcartier near Quebec City.

Canada currently has some 2,800 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, primarily in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south, under a parliamentary mandate that expires in 2011.

Canada has lost 129 troops in Afghanistan since 2002. A Canadian diplomat and a humanitarian aid worker from Canada also have been killed there.

Taliban claim responsibility for Kabul attack

AP, Tue Sep 8, 2009, 1:23 am ET

KABUL, Afghanistan –

A Taliban spokesman has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack near the military airport in Kabul. An Afghan official says one civilian has been killed and seven wounded.

Police say the vehicle exploded near the entrance to the airport in the Afghan capital early Tuesday. The blast rattled windows more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) away.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid says the attack was against a NATO convoy and that three Landcruisers were destroyed. NATO forces say they do not yet have details on the incident. An Afghan health ministry official says one civilian was killed and seven wounded.

KABUL (AP) —

A car bomb exploded near the entrance to the military airport in Afghanistan's capital early Tuesday, police said. The blast rattled windows more than a mile away.

The attack appeared to be aimed at an international convoy, said Rohullah, a police official for the area who like many Afghans goes by one name.

A witness said he saw the car ram into a line of SUVs.

"I saw three or four Landcruisers for the foreigners just in front of the gate ... then there was a car and it hit them then blew up," said Humayun, who watched the attack from his nearby shop.

There were no official casualty figures, but an Associated Press reporter at the site saw two people carried to ambulances, and Humayun said he saw three injured people being carried away.

The blast occurred about 8:22 a.m. local time and the air was still thick with smoke about an hour later. Fire trucks ringed the area.

U.S. forces spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician confirmed an explosion south of the airport, but said he did not yet have further details.

Taliban attacks, often deadly, occur in Kabul despite tight security and blast walls. Suicide bombers have hit government buildings and gunmen have overrun ministries.

NATO said that two Taliban fighters fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the rear gate of Camp Phoenix outside Kabul late Monday, but there were no injuries to anyone inside and no damage to the base. Afghan police said the two militants were killed.