KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 19 September 2006 — A suicide bomber on a bicycle killed four Canadian NATO soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday as they were trying to reassure villagers about safety, while 15 Afghans were killed in two other blasts. The Taleban, who have unleashed a wave of attacks on government and foreign troops this year, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Canadians in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province a day after NATO declared the area free of Taleban.
Later, a blast killed 11 people including four policemen outside a mosque in the generally peaceful western city of Herat, the province’s governor said. Police said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle and the province’s deputy police chief was among 18 wounded. A suicide car-bomber killed four policemen and wounded 10 passers-by in the capital, Kabul, the Interior Ministry said. The violence is bound to increase apprehension about NATO’s biggest ground offensive as alliance commanders press member states for 2,500 extra troops.
Canadian Brig. Gen. David Fraser, who commands a multinational brigade in the south, said the Canadians were trying to reassure villagers after weeks of fighting in their area. “The soldiers were conducting a patrol in the area to provide security ... just trying to reassure the people ... that there was security out there and to reassure the people that they could come back,” Fraser said.
Canadian, British and Dutch soldiers are leading a NATO push into the south where they have come up against a much more aggressive Taleban than expected. The violence, the most intense since the Taleban were ousted five years ago, has raised concern about the prospects for a country that had been seen as a success in the US-led war on terrorism. Washington targeted the country as a haven for the Al-Qaeda group that launched 9/11 attacks on the United States.
The NATO force said the Canadians were giving gifts to villagers when the bomber struck. Police said they were handing out notebooks and pens to children. NATO said 27 civilians were wounded and police said most of them were children. Fraser said civilians, including two children, as well as other Canadian soldiers were wounded.
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said on Sunday NATO and Afghan troops had driven Taleban insurgents out of Panjwai district, about 25 km west of Kandahar city, after a two-week offensive codenamed Operation Medusa.
NATO said more than 400 insurgents were killed in the operation in the grape-farming district but the Taleban denied such losses. Five Canadians and 14 British troops were killed during the operation and thousands of villagers fled. A Taleban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said by telephone the Panjwai bomb was set off by a young Taleban suicide bomber. There was no immediate claim for the blasts in Herat or Kabul.
The Herat blast occurred at a gate of the city’s main Blue Mosque. The Kabul blast was on the main road in the east of the city where foreign forces have bases as police were searching for a bomber, police said. NATO commands about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, in the north, west and south.
