Convoy suicide bomb kills 21

A suicide car bomber in eastern Afghanistan killed 20 civilians and a US soldier today, a US military spokesman said.

Lt Cmdr Walter Matthews said the bomber attacked a US convoy in Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province.

Ajmal Pardes, an Afghan health official, said 74 civilians were wounded in the attack.

The attack happened at a crowded market in Bati Kot.

Taliban militants regularly use suicide attackers and car bombs in their assaults against Afghan, US and other foreign troops in the country.

Separately, an explosion in southern Afghanistan killed two NATO troops yesterday, the military alliance said in a statement. It did not disclose the troops' nationalities.

The bomber struck the convoy near a crowded market, where people were trading sheep, cows, goats and other animals, said Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.

A photographer said that an American military vehicle, two civilian vehicles and two rickshaws were destroyed.

The wounded civilians were transported to at least three hospitals in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, Mr Khan said. The death toll was likely to rise, Mr Khan said.

More than 5,400 people, including nearly 1,000 civilians, have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to a tally based on figures provided by Afghan and international officials.

The US soldier’s death brings the number of US troops killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 148, the highest annual tally of troop deaths since the US-led invasion in 2001. There were 111 US military deaths in Afghanistan in all of 2007.

The attack in Nangarhar follows a truck bomb blast yesterday in southern Afghanistan, which killed six people and wounded 42.

The blast in Kandahar city, the Taliban’s former stronghold, came as the provincial council was hearing constituent complaints. Two members of the provincial council were wounded in the attack, said Kandahar Governor Rahmatullah Raufi.