Suicide bombers kill 18 in Afghanistan

A string of suicide bombings across Afghanistan killed 18 people, including four Canadian soldiers, today and wounded scores of others a day after Nato announced a victory over insurgents in a southern Taliban stronghold.

A bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in normally quiet western Heart province, killing 11 and wounding 18, including the province’s deputy police chief, said Sayed Hussein Anwari, Heart’s governor.

Four Canadian soldiers were killed when their foot patrol was attacked by another suicide bomber on a bicycle in Kafir Band, a village in southern Kandahar province’s Panjwayi district, said Karen Johnstone, a spokeswoman for the Canadian military in Ottawa.

The attack, which was claimed by the Taliban, happened in the same area where Nato forces said a day earlier they had ended a two-week Canadian-led operation against insurgents that they described as successful and had killed at least 510 militants

“Some 50 to 60 soldiers were patrolling on the main street when a man on a bicycle stopped and blew himself up near the forces,” said 50-year-old farmer Fazel Mohammed, who lives 20 yards away from the blast site.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a Nato spokesman, said the attack killed four Nato soldiers and “wounded a number of others, including civilians". Knittig declined to release the nationalities or identities of the slain soldiers.

Nato also issued a statement saying 25 Afghan civilians had been wounded, including children.

An Afghan official said the bomber targeted Canadian troops handing out sweets to children and killed and wounded dozens of people. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

However, Mohammed and another villager disputed the account, saying few children were in the village at the time of the blast.

The Nato soldiers were patrolling in a road lined with mud-brick houses and orchards of grapes and pomegranate trees when the bicycle bomber attacked.

Four helicopters hovered into the village with at least two landing to retrieve the wounded and dead soldiers, Mohammed said.

Two girls carrying water were among those wounded by the blast, he said.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who claims to be a spokesman for Taliban affairs in southern Afghanistan, said the bomber was an Afghan from Kandahar named Mullah Qudrat Ullah.

Ahmadi, whose exact ties to the militants are not known, said that militants would continue attacking US Nato and other coalition forces.

Most of Afghanistan’s recent surge in violence has taken place in volatile southern provinces, where some 8,000 Nato forces took military control from the US-led coalition on August 1.

Nato commanders say they need another 2,500 troops plus greater air support to crush the Taliban threat more quickly.

In Kabul, another suicide car bomber killed three Afghan police and wounded another in the eastern suburb of Poli-e-Charki, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, the criminal director of Kabul police. At least two civilians were wounded in the blast in a market, said a witness, Baktiar Ahmad.

Police also clashed with suspected insurgents in neighbouring Helmand province on Sunday, killing 13 suspected Taliban and wounding four, said Ghulam Nabil Malakheil, the provincial police chief.

Police recovered the dead militants’ bodies, including that of Mullah Mohammed Akhunzada, a known Taliban commander, scattered throughout orchards in the Gereshk district village of Hawasa, Malakheil said. The insurgents took the wounded with them.

The officers also recovered 12 AK-47 assault rifles, three heavy machine-guns and six rocket-propelled grenades, he said.

Separately, two police were killed and their vehicle destroyed when they were attacked by a roadside bomb early on Sunday in the same district, said Ghulam Muhiddin, the Helmand governor spokesman. He blamed the Taliban.

The violence comes a day after a top Nato general declared an end to Operation Medusa in Panjwayi and neighbouring Zhari districts.

Lt. Gen. David Richards, head of the 20,000 Nato-led force in Afghanistan, described the operation as a “significant success". Richards said the insurgents had been forced to abandon their positions and reconstruction and development efforts would soon begin in the volatile former Taliban heartland.