KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 14 October 2006 — A suicide car bomb hit a NATO convoy in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar yesterday, killing a foreign soldier and eight civilians in the latest in a campaign of Taleban attacks. The US convoy was traveling through town to a nearby area where International Security Assistance Force soldiers killed 20 Taleban insurgents a day earlier in a battle involving artillery and warplanes.
“A vehicle-borne suicide bomber killed eight Afghan civilians in an attack on an ISAF convoy traveling in Kandahar City,” an ISAF statement said, adding that two ISAF soldiers and several civilians were also wounded. One of the troops died later in hospital, it said. The statement did not give the soldier’s nationality but ISAF officials said earlier the bomb had hit a US convoy.
The car used for the attack was totally destroyed and lay in pieces at the site, an AFP reporter said. Blood was spattered on the road and sidewalks, while three nearby shops were on fire and 10 others were damaged.
“This indiscriminate attack further demonstrates the insurgents’ total disregard for the safety of the local population of Kandahar city,” the statement said.
Around 115 foreign troops have now died in hostile action in Afghanistan this year, about half of them Americans. The convoy was passing through the city to a meeting of village elders in the Panjwayi area, 35 kilometers west of the city, ISAF spokesman Maj. Quentin Innis said.
The Panjwayi area was the focus last month of NATO’s biggest anti-Taleban operation launched against entrenched insurgents who had massed fighters and equipment for what officials said could have been an assault on Kandahar.
