"Kabul suicide bomber kills 3 civilians, hurts soldiers; NATO convoy rammed in attack" by Rahim Faiez, Associated Press | August 12, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber rammed his car into a NATO convoy in Kabul yesterday, killing three civilians and wounding at least a dozen, officials said. Clashes and an air strike in the south killed 25 militants and eight civilians held hostage by insurgents.
Another bomb attack against a NATO convoy in the country's northwest killed one soldier and wounded several other people, including civilians.
The Kabul suicide bomber targeted a NATO convoy on the main road in the city's eastern outskirts, killing three civilians and wounding 12 others, said Ayub Salangi, the provincial police chief.
The blast also wounded some NATO soldiers, NATO's press office in Kabul said. A witness who was traveling ahead of the convoy when the blast happened said the troops were British.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed claimed responsibility for the blast, and said a man named Aminullah from the eastern Khost Province blew himself up. Mujahed's claim could not be independently verified.
In the southern province of Uruzgan, meanwhile, militants ambushed coalition and Afghan troops along a road Sunday, triggering gun battles during which militants moved into a compound and took 11 civilians hostage, a coalition statement said.
"Coalition troops called in close-air support to engage the militants hiding in the structure. They did not have knowledge of noncombatants in the buildings at that time," the statement said.
As a result, eight civilians were killed and three were wounded, the coalition said. The wounded civilians were taken to a coalition base for treatment.
First Lieutenant Nathan Perry, a US coalition spokesman, said three civilian hostages survived the air strike in Khas Uruzgan district, including an infant, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 20s.
Juma Gul Himat, the provincial police chief, said six civilians, one child and five men, were killed and three others were wounded in the strike. He could not immediately explain why the coalition said eight civilians were killed.
Himat blamed the Taliban fighters for using civilian homes for cover during the attack, thus putting civilians in danger. The coalition regularly accuses militants of using civilian homes they commandeer to attack foreign and Afghan troops.
But President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials have pleaded with the coalition to avoid civilian casualties, which threaten to undermine support for the government. Karzai on Sunday urged the US-led coalition and NATO troops to go after militant sanctuaries in Pakistan, rather than bomb Afghan villages.
"The struggle against terrorism is not in the villages of Afghanistan," he said. "The only result of the use of air strikes is the killing of civilians. This is not the way to wage the fight against terrorism."
More than 3,000 people, mostly militants, have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western and Afghan officials.
In the northwestern province of Faryab yesterday, a bomb attack killed a Latvian solider and wounded three, the country's Defense Ministry said. Earlier, provincial police chief Khalil Andarabi had said the attack had wounded 14 people, including two foreign soldiers and 12 civilians. The differing tolls could not immediately be reconciled."Yup, things are going just great in Afghanistan.
No wonder the MSM doesn't report from there every day.
It would conflict with the unending doses of propaganda we are fed!!!!
