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Bombs kill 3 Afghan troops, 2 civilians
[February 09, 2009] KABUL (AP) -- Two bomb attacks in Afghanistan killed three Afghan security forces and two civilians, officials said Monday.
A roadside bomb ripped through a police vehicle in Khogyani district, near the border with Pakistan, killing two police and wounding three civilians, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the provincial governor.
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A suicide bomber attacked a group of Afghan soldiers Sunday in southwestern Nimroz province, killing one soldier and two civilians, Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad said. Taliban militants have made a comeback over the last three years after their initial defeat following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Militants use roadside bombs and suicide attacks in their fight against Afghan and foreign troops. U.S. military leaders have said they plan to send up to 30,000 more troops into the country over the next year to reinforce the 33,000 American forces already there. The administration of President Barack Obama has pledged to increase U.S. attention on Afghanistan as it shifts focus away from the war in Iraq. In Kabul, Gen. Doud Doud, the deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics, said NATO forces have aided Afghan troops in the fight against drugs for the last three months. Doud labeled it a "mistake" that NATO hadn't been involved earlier. Afghan and NATO soldiers captured 17 people involved in the drug trade last week in Nimroz province, including 15 Pakistanis, Doud said. On Sunday, the top NATO commander, Gen. John Craddock, said operations to attack drug lords and labs would begin within several days in an effort to strike at a key income source for the Taliban. Money from Afghanistan's booming illicit drug trade has been blamed for pumping up to $100 million a year into the Taliban's coffers. Doud, however, called for drug dealers to be tried in Afghanistan's special narcotics court system. He said they shouldn't be killed in military operations. |
