Suicide bomber targets Canadian troops

A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan today, an Afghan official said.

Nato confirmed an unspecified number of casualties among alliance troops.

The attack happened in the Kandahar province district of Panjwayi, the scene of a two-week anti-Taliban operation conducted by Nato that ended yesterday.

An Afghan police official said the bomber attacked the troops while they were distributing candy to children, seriously wounding dozens of people.

Nato spokesman Flight Lt Ewan Downie confirmed an explosion had inflicted an unspecified number of troop casualties in Kandahar.

A top Nato general had earlier declared an offensive aimed at driving Taliban militants out of safe havens in southern Kandahar a success, despite suicide bombings and other violence continuing against international forces in Afghanistan.

Suicide bombers attacked Canadian and US troops in separate incidents yesterday, killing two civilians and wounding six soldiers, and militants who have evaded the Nato offensive in the south took control over a district in western Afghanistan after chasing away the police.

Lt Gen David Richards, head of the 20,000 Nato-led force in Afghanistan, said the insurgents have been forced to abandon their positions and reconstruction and development efforts would soon begin in the volatile former Taliban heartland.

He said the insurgents had “suffered significant casualties” and “had no choice but to leave.”

Alliance officials have said more than 500 militants were killed during the two-week-long operation, centred mainly in Panjwai, Pashmul and Zhari districts in southern Kandahar province.

But in an apparent attempt to open new front, some 400 Taliban crossed into the western Farah province taking control of its Gulistan district after chasing away the police there, said Gen Sayed Aqa Saqib, the provincial police chief.

The militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns burnt the district headquarters and a local clinic, he said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

“We are hoping gevrnment will send more troops, because there are too many Taliban in the area,” Mr Saqib told AP.

In yesterday’s violence, a youth carrying explosives jumped in front of a US military convoy east of Kabul, killing a bystander and wounding three American soldiers, Afghan police said.

Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber ploughed his explosive-laden vehicle into a Canadian military convoy in southern Afghanistan, killing one civilian and wounding three soldiers.

The bomber targeted the convoy west of Kandahar city, said Zulmai Khan, a police official at the scene. Eight civilians were also hurt in the blast, police said.

Separately, the mutilated body of an Afghan engineer was found Sunday in Ghazni province, where he had been kidnapped earlier in the week by suspected Taliban militants, said Ali Ahmad Fakuri, the provincial governor’s spokesman.

The victim had worked for a local aid agency involved in rural development, he said.

The completion of the Nato offensive in the south came as US and Afghan troops made a renewed push against the Taliban in central and eastern Afghanistan.

Dubbed Operation Mountain Fury, the new offensive involves 7,000 US and Afghan soldiers in the central and eastern provinces of Paktika, Khost, Ghazni, Paktya and Logar, the military said. Fighter planes and helicopters will back the forces.

A separate US-led operation called Big Northern Wind has been under way in Kunar province’s Korangal Valley since late August.

Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, including al Qaida, are known to operate in the east, especially in the area bordering Pakistan where the reach of the government is weak and militants find sanctuaries.

The renewed American push to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency comes nearly five years after the US-led invasion ousted the hard-line militia from power.

The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan said on Saturday in London that he expects the military campaign against the Taliban to last another three to five years.