KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — In some of the deadliest combat since the Taleban’s fall, hundreds of militants with machine guns stormed a town, battled Afghan, US and Canadian forces and set off car bombs.
More than 100 people were killed, including dozens of insurgents and a US civilian, officials said yesterday.
The violence was concentrated in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.
The Taleban have stepped up attacks in recent months, but the fighting that raged Wednesday night and yesterday marked an escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan.
The Taleban death toll from fighting ranged up to 87, US and Afghan officials said.
Fifteen Afghan police officers and a Canadian officer were killed.
Capt. Nichola Goddard, who died in a clash in Kandahar, was Canada’s first female soldier to die in combat.
Two suicide bombings elsewhere in Afghanistan claimed two lives, including an American civilian working on a US project to train Afghan police.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the violence was emanating from neighboring Pakistan. “We have credible reports that inside Pakistan, in the madrassas, the mullahs and teachers are saying to their students: ‘Go to Afghanistan for jihad. Burn the schools and (medical) clinics,”’ Karzai said.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Tasnim Aslam, called the allegations “baseless.”
In one of the largest militant attacks since 2001, an estimated 400 militants attacked a police and government headquarters late Wednesday in the small town of Musa Qala in Helmand, sparking hours of clashes with Afghan security forces. At least 40 Taleban fighters were killed.
