KHOST, 13 July 2006 — A suicide attacker blew himself up near a US-led coalition supply vehicle in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing a school student and wounding eight other people, officials said.
The blast hit a district center that comprises a school, government offices and a bazaar in eastern Khost province. It only slightly damaged the supply vehicle, police said.
“We received eight civilians wounded. Two of them are in critical condition,” Khost public health director Amir Badshah Mangal said. “We have also received one school student dead, and his body is still in hospital.” The coalition could not immediately confirm the attack in the Yaqubi district.
The wounded included students, government employees and shopkeepers. “All the wounds were caused by the explosion,” Mangal said. “The attacker himself died and there was minor damage to the vehicle but no casualties,” Ministry of Interior spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said. “The attacker was smashed into pieces and his identity cannot be told.”
There are regular suicide attacks in Afghanistan, most of them blamed on insurgents from the extremist Taleban movement that was toppled from government in late 2001 and is now trying to overthrow the new administration. Most suicide attacks are targeted at Afghan and coalition vehicles in southern and eastern Afghanistan but they kill or wound more civilians than military personnel. The last was about a week ago in southern Kandahar city and killed a policeman.
In another incident here, two militants were killed in a firefight with security forces on Tuesday, Stanizai said. A security patrol was ambushed in the restive Shinkay district. Security forces returned fire at the attackers.
“They left two dead bodies on the battlefield. We believe they suffered big casualties — more than two,” Stanizai said in Kabul.
The Taleban insurgency has grown despite the efforts of the fledgling Afghan forces and nearly 40,000 foreign troops who are trying to stabilize the war-torn country so that much-needed reconstruction can go ahead.
Meanwhile, some 150 British troops based in Cyprus left for southern Afghanistan yesterday, the first batch of 900 reinforcements being send by London to the troubled region to counter a Taleban threat, army officials said.
The company from the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers — which is on operational standby in Cyprus — will be followed by two platoons from the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment from elsewhere.
“Cyprus has sent the first batch of reinforcements to Afghanistan, part our role here is to always be prepared to go on operations to hot climates,” British Forces Cyprus spokesman Dennis Barnes said. “Their job is to guard the camps and offer force protection to assets and personnel. They won’t be patrolling mountains or borders,” he added.
