Canadian soldier dies in Afghan south
Insurgents attacked a NATO patrol in Afghanistan on Saturday, killing a Canadian soldier in a southern district that the alliance said had been cleared of Taliban fighters after a two-week offensive last month.
Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year to its most intense level since US-led forces ousted the hardline Taliban government in late 2001, weeks after the September 11 attacks.
Saturday was the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the offensive that swept the Taliban from power.
The NATO patrol was hit by a bomb and small-arms fire in Panjwai district, about 25 km west of the city of Kandahar.
A spokeswoman for Canadian forces in southern Afghanistan, Lieutenant Sue Stefko, said the soldier was killed by the bomb blast.
NATO forces mounted a two-week offensive in September to clear hundreds of entrenched Taliban from Panjwai.
The commander of NATO's Afghan force, General David Richards, said the Taliban had probably suffered their greatest single defeat since 2001 in the operation.
A NATO commander said about 1,000 Taliban had been killed.
The Taliban dismissed that, saying they had suffered far fewer casualties.
Later on Saturday, a suicide car-bomber attacked a NATO patrol in the eastern province of Khost. The bomber was killed in the blast and no troops were hurt, a force spokesman said.
It was the third suicide attack in Khost since NATO took command of the province and the rest of the east from a US-led coalition force on Thursday.
More than 140 foreign troops have been killed since January, fanning opposition among the public and opposition parties in some NATO countries to their troops' involvement in Afghanistan.
A rocket or mortar bomb hit an empty house in a Kabul neighbourhood on Saturday evening, resident said. A boy in a nearby house was slightly wounded by flying glass.
1 comment:
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