Waheed Mahmood
KANDAHAR: An insurgent attack in south Afghanistan killed at least six foreign troops and two Afghan soldiers on Sunday, officials said, days before Washington is due to complete a review of its war strategy.
General Abdul Hameed, the commander of the Afghan army in the south, said a suicide car bomber staged the attack outside a U.S. base in Kandahar province, the heartland of Taliban insurgents.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said six troops had been killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan but declined to give any details or confirm if it was the same incident. The deaths come days before U.S. President Barack Obama is due to complete a review of his Afghanistan war strategy and underline the rising tide of violence. Violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, with military and civilian casualties at record highs.
In a further blow for Obama, his special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke, was in critical condition on Saturday after surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. The attack in the south had the highest toll in a single battlefield incident since a May suicide bomb near a military convoy in Kabul that also killed six.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said six troops had been killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan but declined to give any details or confirm if it was the same incident. The deaths come days before U.S. President Barack Obama is due to complete a review of his Afghanistan war strategy and underline the rising tide of violence. Violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, with military and civilian casualties at record highs.
In a further blow for Obama, his special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke, was in critical condition on Saturday after surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. The attack in the south had the highest toll in a single battlefield incident since a May suicide bomb near a military convoy in Kabul that also killed six.
A border policeman shot dead six U.S. soldiers last month, but he was on a training exercise with the troops he killed, and already inside their security cordon when he opened fire. Hameed said the bomber had tried to enter the base but his vehicle detonated at a gate outside, wounding three Afghans and four foreign soldiers, in addition to those killed. It was not clear whether the device had gone off prematurely or whether the bomber had been killed by guards, he added. Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the Islamist group. “It was one of our suicide bombers, who used a minibus for this attack on the base,” he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Intensified fighting cost the lives of more than 690 foreign troops in 2010, around one third of the total 2,260 who have died in more than nine years of conflict. June was the bloodiest month ever for foreign forces in Afghanistan, with 103 deaths. The rise in troop deaths is a major challenge for Obama and his administration, who are under pressure to find an exit from an increasingly unpopular war. Holbrooke’s illness comes just before the White House is due to roll out its assessment of the revised strategy for the troubled region that Obama unveiled a year ago, which included an extra 30,000 U.S. troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai joined Obama and other officials in wishing Holbrooke a speedy recovery, saying on Sunday he was “greatly moved” when he learnt of his condition.
“I don’t think it is an immediate concern for the U.S. government because you have a strong group of senior representatives for the U.S. here in Kabul already,” said Andrew Exum, a Fellow at the Centre for a New American Security.
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