Terrorist attacks kill US soldier, 18 Afghan civilians
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Kabul, Nov 13, IRNA
Afghanistan-Terrorism
Terrorists on Thursday attacked an American military convoy in Eastern Afghanistan killing one US soldier and 18 civilians.
One of the dead was a 12-year-old boy, who died when a suicide car bomber in a Toyota Corolla approached an American military convoy and then swerved into a weekly market at around 8 a.m.
Dr. Ajmal Pardes, the director of public health in the area, said 74 people were injured.
The strike was in the Bati Kot district of eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province.
On Wednesday, a tanker truck packed with explosives detonated outside the provincial council office in Kandahar, Afghan largest southern city, killing the driver and at least six other people and wounding more than 40 others.
The blast shook the entire city, caused at least five houses to fall and left a crater near the council building, which housed an office of a national security service.
"The enemies of Afghanistan and peace once again put us in mourning," Gen. Rahmatullah Roufi, the provincial governor, told reporters.
He announced a "clean up" operation to arrest insurgents in and near the city.
In a separate incident reported on Thursday, two soldiers from the American-led NATO alliance were killed in an explosion in the south of the country in an explosion on Wednesday.
The Defense Ministry in London later identified the two soldiers as members of Britain's Royal Marines who were taking part in a joint patrol with Afghan soldiers in the Garmsir district of Southern Helmand Province.
The American contingent is the largest foreign force in Afghanistan but Britain has about 8,000 troops there.
The latest American fatalities brought to around 148 the number of American military deaths so far this year, compared to 111 in the whole of 2001. Additionally, around 110 soldiers from other coalition forces have died this year.
More than 5,400 people, including almost 1,000 civilians, have died in violence related to the insurgency this year, according to the Afghan and international officials.
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