ASAD ABAD, AFGHANISTAN: A double suicide attack killed three NATO soldiers in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, Afghan and Western officials said. NATO said three of its troops died in an “insurgent attack” in the east but gave no further details in line with policy.
A Western military official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the three soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Asad Abad, the capital of Kunar province.
The nationalities of the soldiers were not disclosed, but American troops provide the bulk of the NATO mission in Kunar, a flashpoint for Taleban and other militants on the Pakistani border.
Local police chief, Mohammad Aywaz Naziri, told AFP that two insurgents wearing suicide vests blew themselves up as a group of foreign troops walked to the nearby governor's compound.
Meanwhile, the number of Afghan civilian casualties has fallen for the first time in at least five years, dropping by 15 percent during the first half of 2012 compared to the same period last year, the United Nations said yesterday.
A total of 1,145 Afghan non-combatants lost their lives in violence, mostly insurgent attacks, between Jan. 1 and June 30 this year compared to 1,510 in 2011, the UN said. Another 1,954 civilians were wounded, it said. The United Nations said that marked a 15 percent decline on the 3,654 casualties documented during the same period in 2011.
It said previously that 2011 saw a record number of civilians killed in the decade-long war. “This reduction of civilian casualties reverses the trend in which civilian casualties had increased steadily over the previous five years,” the UN mission in Afghanistan said in a report.
The findings come as a US-led NATO mission prepares to withdraw the bulk of its 130,000 foreign combat troops from Afghanistan in the next 18 months.
Despite the decline in casualties, the United Nations warned that the war “continued to take a devastating toll on civilians”.
It said the Taleban and other insurgents were responsible for 80 percent of the casualties while pro-government forces, which include the NATO force, were blamed for 10 percent. The remaining 10 percent was attributed to unknown groups.
NATO air strikes have been particularly controversial in Afghanistan, but the UN report said civilian casualties from air strikes were down 23 percent compared to the same period in 2011.
Women and children accounted for about 30 percent of this year's casualties — up one percent from the same period in 2011 — killed or wounded mostly in Taleban roadside bombings with IEDs, the insurgents' weapon of choice.
n FROM: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Three NATO troops killed in Afghan double suicide attack
