The powerful blast, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility, killed seven Afghan civilians and wounded 91 more. The bomb went off outside NATO headquarters just after 8:30 Saturday morning, the beginning of the Afghan workweek. It sent a plume of smoke visible around Kabul and knocked out glass windows more than 500 feet away.

The attackers managed to get past at least one police checkpoint to enter a zone that includes the NATO compound and the US Embassy. Insurgents appear to be targeting the capital to create high-profile shocks seen around the country, the aim being to sow doubt about the safety of turning out to vote Thursday.

“No one can guarantee our lives if we take part in the elections,” says Sher Mohammad Faqiri, a driver who works near the scene. His colleague, Noor Sherzai, helped carry three wounded people off the street. “This is the safest area in Kabul. I don’t know if I will attend elections.”

The nation’s security forces have developed a three-tiered strategy for securing approximately 7,000 voting centers on Thursday. The plan is that police will check voters as they enter, while Afghan National Army forces stand as backup. The final backstop will be NATO forces, which will be based some distance away, but close enough to respond rapidly. But it is unclear if each polling station will actually have that level of protection.

While these three forces are supposed to be in close coordination, an incident at Saturday’s blast calls that into question. About an hour after the blast, the police chief charged with securing the elections in Kabul arrived on scene. Gen. Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayed Zada, whose regular job is as chief of the criminal investigation department with the Kabul police, stepped under a security cordon tape stretched across the scene. An investigator at heart, he first bent down to pick up a small scrap of paper he saw lying on the street and looked it over.

When he rose, he was intercepted by representatives of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). He explained who he was, but got the response: “We don’t care who you are; now it’s under control of ISAF.”

“That’s just atrocious COIN [counterinsurgency],” says Tim Lynch, an Afghanistan-based security expert referring to counterinsurgency. “You’ve got a new general here talking COIN. And in the manual they have written themselves, it would absolute mandate close coordination with that guy.”

Mr. Lynch adds that the execution of this car bomb was superior to previous insurgent efforts in Afghanistan.

Across the country, there’s doubt that every voting center will be able to open, given the insecurity. The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan estimates that 14 of the country’s 368 districts will be too insecure to send independent election monitors. An additional 130 fall into a questionable category.

Most of these troubled districts lie in the Pashtun-dominated south and east of the country. While Kabul has enjoyed relative security, the city police understand that the Taliban will be targeting it in an effort to undermine the image of the election in the eyes of the world.

Bomb in Kabul targets NATO headquarters, near US Embassy

In interviews, several Taliban fighters based in the border region said preparations for the anticipated influx of American troops were already being made. A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.

The refortified alliance was forged after the reclusive Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, sent emissaries to persuade Pakistani Taliban leaders to join forces and turn their attention to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials and Taliban members said.

The overture by Mullah Omar is an indication that with the prospect of an American buildup, the Taliban feel the need to strengthen their own forces in Afghanistan and to redirect their Pakistani allies toward blunting the new American push.

The Pakistani Taliban, an offspring of the Afghan Taliban, are led by veterans of the fighting in Afghanistan who come from the border regions. They have always supported the fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan by supplying fighters, training and logistical aid.

But in recent years the Pakistani Taliban have concentrated on battling the Pakistani government, extending a domain that has not only threatened Pakistan but has also provided an essential rear base for the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

At the same time, American officials told The New York Times this week that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency continued to offer money, supplies and guidance to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan as a proxy to help shape a friendly government there once American forces leave.

The new Taliban alliance has raised concern in Afghanistan, where NATO generals warn that the conflict will worsen this year. It has also generated anxiety in Pakistan, where officials fear that a united Taliban will be more dangerous, even if focused on Afghanistan, and draw more attacks inside Pakistan from United States drone aircraft.

“This may bring some respite for us from militants’ attacks, but what it may entail in terms of national security could be far more serious,” said one senior Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not permitted to talk to news organizations. “This would mean more attacks inside our tribal areas, something we have been arguing against with the Americans.”

The Pakistani Taliban is dominated by three powerful commanders — Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulavi Nazir — based in North and South Waziristan, the hub of insurgent activity in Pakistan’s tribal border regions, who have often clashed among themselves.

Mullah Omar dispatched a six-member team to Waziristan in late December and early January, several Taliban fighters said in interviews in Dera Ismail Khan, a town in North-West Frontier Province that is not far from South Waziristan. The Afghan Taliban delegation urged the Pakistani Taliban leaders to settle their internal differences, scale down their activities in Pakistan and help counter the planned increase of American forces in Afghanistan, the fighters said.

The three Pakistani Taliban leaders agreed. In February, they formed a united council, or shura, called the Council of United Mujahedeen. In a printed statement the leaders vowed to put aside their disputes and focus on fighting American-led forces in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the meetings ever took place or that any emissaries were sent by Mullah Omar. The Afghan Taliban routinely disavow any presence in Pakistan or connection to the Pakistani Taliban to emphasize that their movement is indigenous to Afghanistan. “We don’t like to be involved with them, as we have rejected all affiliation with Pakistani Taliban fighters,” Mr. Mujahid said. “We have sympathy for them as Muslims, but beside that, there is nothing else between us.”

Several Pakistani officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to news organizations, confirmed the meetings. But they said that the overture might have been inspired by Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Taliban leader who swears allegiance to Mullah Omar but is largely independent in his operations.

Mr. Haqqani, and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani, the most powerful figures in Waziristan, are closely linked to Al Qaeda and to Pakistani intelligence, American officials say. From their base in North Waziristan, they have directed groups of fighters into eastern Afghanistan and increasingly in complex attacks on the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The Taliban fighters said the Afghan Taliban delegation was led by Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a commander from Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, whose real name is reported to be Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul.

A front-line commander during the Taliban government, Mullah Zakir was captured in 2001 in northern Afghanistan and was detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until his release in 2007, Afghan Taliban members contacted by telephone said.

The Pakistani fighters described Mullah Zakir as an impressive speaker and a trainer, and one said he was particularly energetic in working to unite the different Taliban groups. Beyond bolstering Taliban forces in Afghanistan, both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leaders had other reasons to unite, Pakistani officials said.

One motivation may have been to shift the focus of hostilities to Afghanistan in hopes of improving their own security in Waziristan, where more than 30 drone strikes in recent months have been directed at both Mr. Mehsud and Mr. Nazir. Two senior commanders of the Haqqani network have been killed.

The Pakistani Taliban leaders also rely on Mr. Haqqani and their affiliation with the Afghan mujahedeen for legitimacy, as well as the money and influence it brings.

In their written statement, decorated with crossed swords, the three Pakistani Taliban leaders reaffirmed their allegiance to Mullah Omar, as well as the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden.

The mujahedeen should unite as the “enemies” have united behind the leadership of President Obama, it said. “The mujahedeen should put aside their own differences for the sake of God, God’s happiness, for the strength of religion, and to bring dishonor on the infidels.” The Taliban fighters interviewed said that the top commanders removed a number of older commanders and appointed younger commanders who were good fighters to prepare for operations in Afghanistan in the coming weeks.

In confident spirits, the Taliban fighters predicted that 2009 was going to be a “very bloody” year.

Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx

But in an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Obama also said military means alone would not solve the problem.

U.S. officials have said Washington and its allies are not winning in Afghanistan, more than seven years after toppling the Taliban for giving sanctuary to al Qaeda leaders responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

The extra 17,000 troops will increase the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by more than 40 percent.

“This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said in a statement.

But in an interview with CBC Television ahead of a visit to Canada, Obama said: “I’m absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region, solely through military means.

“We’re going to have use diplomacy, we’re going to have to use development, and my hope is that in conversations that I have with (Canadian) Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper that he and I end up seeing the importance of a comprehensive strategy.”

The new forces will include a Marine expeditionary brigade of some 8,000 troops and an Army brigade of 4,000 soldiers equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, the Pentagon said.

“The decision was communicated to the Pentagon yesterday. The orders were signed today,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama in Denver.

The extra forces will go to southern Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO troops have struggled to hold territory against an increasingly bold Taliban insurgency.

TROOPS BOOSTED

The forces are part of an anticipated build-up that could expand the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to 60,000 troops, from a current 38,000.

As well as American forces, there are also some 30,000 troops from NATO nations attempting to stabilize Afghanistan.

“There is no more solemn duty as president than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm’s way,” Obama said. “I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action.”

U.S. officials say Taliban safe havens over the border in Pakistan are a major asset for insurgents.

The announcement comes while the White House is still conducting a broad review of U.S. policy on Afghanistan.

The deployment provides two of three extra combat brigades requested by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Army General David McKiernan.

The units had originally been scheduled to go to Iraq.

Obama has pledged to pull out all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, but commanders are pushing for a slower withdrawal, warning that security gains are fragile.

Both Democrats and Republicans welcomed Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican defeated by Obama in last November’s presidential election, described the situation in Afghanistan as “dire.” But he also called on Obama to spell out a clear strategy.

“There still exists no integrated civil-military plan for this war — more than seven years after we began military operations,” McCain said. “A major change in course is long overdue.”

(Additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington, Caren Bohan in Denver and Randall Palmer in Ottawa; Editing by David Fox

Obama orders 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan | Reuters

Fourteen wounded civilians were taken to the nearby Emergency Hospital and one died on the way, hospital officials said.

Six U.S. troops were also wounded by the blast, but none were killed, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.

A U.S. military statement said previously that two U.S. troops were killed and 12 wounded, but the spokesman said the statement was erroneous.

The bomber struck on a road lined with high concrete blast barriers that runs between the German embassy and Camp Eggers, the headquarters of a U.S. unit that trains the Afghan army and police. The presidential palace and United Nations headquarters in Afghanistan lie immediately behind Camp Eggers.

A spokesman for the U.S. force based at Camp Eggers said three soldiers had been evacuated to a military hospital at Bagram, the main U.S. base north of Kabul.

There were no Germans hurt at the embassy, a spokeswoman said.

Relatives of the dead gathered outside the Emergency Hospital. A middle-aged woman was beating her head and screaming that her son had died. Another man was crying and said his son had also been killed.

Taliban militants, fighting to overthrow the Western-backed Afghan government and drive out foreign troops, have launched hundreds of suicide attacks in the last two years, but most of the victims are Afghan civilians.

While Taliban influence has spread from their traditional heartlands in the south and east to areas closer to the capital, there were fewer attacks inside Kabul last year than in 2007 with many more police checkpoints throughout the city.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan a foreign policy priority after he comes to office on Tuesday and is expected to approve the doubling of U.S. troops in the country from the 30,000 at present.

Kabul: Suicide bomb rocks German embassy, U.S. base – Nachrichten English-News – WELT ONLINE

The bomber hit the U.S. patrol on a busy street in Kandahar province’s Maywand district, said district chief Naimatullah Khan. American victims were taken away by helicopter, Khan said, but he could not provide a number.

Army Col. Jerry O’Hara, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that U.S. casualties occurred but said he could not give further details.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said two of its soldiers died in the blast, but it did not provide nationalities. U.S. soldiers serve as part of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the blast in a phone call to an Associated Press reporter in southern Afghanistan.

The blast came at a time when the U.S. is rushing 20,000 American troops into Afghanistan to combat a Taliban insurgency that has sent violence to record levels.

U.S. officials have warned that the violence will probably intensify. More U.S. troops died in the Afghan conflict in 2008 than in any other year since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.

The independent website icasualties.org puts the number last year at 157.

The attack also followed an allegation from Afghan President Hamid Karzai that clashes between U.S.-led troops and insurgents left 17 civilians dead this week.

The U.S. military says all 32 people killed in the fighting were militants.

In a statement Thursday, Karzai said the civilians were killed during clashes between U.S.-led troops and insurgents in the eastern province of Laghman on Tuesday.

Karzai accused the insurgents of using civilians as human shields but also criticized international forces.

The U.S. military, however, said all those killed were militants involved with a bomb-making cell.

“We held [a meeting] with local government officials after the operation, and all local Afghan leaders confirmed that all 32 killed in this operation were hostile militants,” said O’Hara, the spokesman.

Bomb hits U.S. patrol in Afghanistan – Los Angeles Times

The body of local tribesman Shahjir Khan, 25, was found early Tuesday dumped in the central market of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal district, a security official told AFP.

A note found with Khan’s body said he had been hanged because he had spied on Taliban activities and passed information to the United States, the official said.

The bullet-riddled body of an Afghan refugee identified as Akram Khan was found late Monday near the village of Sarobi, some 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Miranshah, with a similar note, he said.

Militants have killed dozens of local tribesmen and Afghan refugees on charges of spying, mainly for the Pakistani government or US forces operating across the border in Afghanistan.

Elsewhere, Taliban militants in Mohmand tribal district late Monday kidnapped an 11-member jirga, or peace delegation of tribal elders, from neighbouring Bajaur tribal district, a local administration official said.

The official said the elders were snatched during a mission to urge the Taliban not to fire rockets on Khar, the main town in Bajaur, where troops have been fighting militants since early August.

Regional administration deputy chief Iqbal Khattak confirmed to AFP that the kidnapping had taken place but gave no further details.

In the village of Mamoond, also in Bajaur, Taliban militants set fire to the homes of four tribal elders for backing the Pakistani government, residents said.

Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels sought refuge in the region after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

AFP: Taliban kill two US ‘spies’ in Pakistan: official

The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies outside the areas where al Qaeda and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive.

“You can’t imagine how bad it is,” said Muzaffar ul-Mulk, a federal lawmaker whose home in Swat was attacked by bomb-toting assailants in mid-December, weeks after he left. “It’s worse day by day.”

The Taliban activity in northwest Pakistan also comes as the country shifts forces east to the Indian border because of tensions over last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, potentially giving insurgents more space to maneuver along the Afghan frontier.

Militants began preying on Swat’s lush mountain ranges about two years ago, and it is now too dangerous for foreign and Pakistani journalists to visit. Interviews with residents, lawmakers and officials who have fled the region paint a dire picture.

A suicide blast killed 40 people Sunday at a polling station in Buner, an area bordering Swat that had been relatively peaceful. The attack underscored fears that even so-called “settled” regions presumptively under government control are increasingly unsafe.

The 3,500-square-mile Swat Valley lies less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

A senior government official said he feared there could be a spillover effect if the government lost control of Swat and allowed the insurgency to infect other areas. Like nearly everyone interviewed, the official requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by militants.

Officials estimate that up to a third of Swat’s 1.5 million people have left the area. Salah-ud-Din, who oversees relief efforts in Swat for the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimated that 80 percent of the valley is now under Taliban control.

Swat’s militants are led by Maulana Fazlullah, a cleric who rose to prominence through radio broadcasts demanding the imposition of a harsh brand of Islamic law. His appeal tapped into widespread frustration with the area’s inefficient judicial system.

Most of the insurgents are easy to spot with long hair, beards, rifles, camouflage vests and running shoes. They number at most 2,000, according to people who were interviewed.

In some places, just a handful of insurgents can control a village. They rule by fear: beheading government sympathizers, blowing up bridges and demanding women wear all-encompassing burqas.

They have also set up a parallel administration with courts, taxes, patrols and checkpoints, according to lawmakers and officials. And they are suspected of burning scores of girls’ schools.

In mid-December, Taliban fighters killed a young member of a Sufi-influenced Muslim group who had tried to raise a militia against them. The militants later dug up Pir Samiullah’s corpse and hung it for two days in a village square – partly to prove to his followers that he was not a superhuman saint, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

A lawmaker and the senior Swat government official said business and landowners had been told to give two-thirds of their income to the militants. Some local media reported last week that the militants have pronounced a ban on female education effective in mid-January.

Several people interviewed said the regional government made a mistake in May when it struck a peace deal with the militants. The agreement fell apart within two months but let the insurgents regroup.

The Swat insurgency also includes Afghan and other fighters from outside the valley, security officials said.

Any movement of Pakistani troops from the Swat Valley and tribal areas to the Indian border will concern the United States and other Western countries, which want Pakistan to focus on the al Qaeda threat near Afghanistan.

On Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said thousands of troops were being shifted toward the border with India, which blames Pakistani militants for terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that killed 164 people. But there has been no sign yet of a major buildup near India.

“The terrorists’ aim in Mumbai was precisely this – to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east,” said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region.

“The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create.”

Residents and officials from the Swat Valley were critical of the army offensive there, saying troops appeared to be confined to their posts and often killed civilians when firing artillery at suspected militant targets.

The military has deployed some 100,000 troops through the northwest.

A government official familiar with security issues estimated that some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops had killed 300 to 400 militants in Swat since 2007, while about 130 troops were killed. Authorities have not released details of civilian casualties, and it was unclear if they were even being tallied.

The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, disputed assertions that militants had overrun the valley, but said a spotty supply line was hampering operations. He said the army had to man some Swat police stations because the police force there had been decimated by desertions and militant killings.

A Swat militant boasted that “we are doing our activities wherever we want, and the army is confined to their living places.”

“They cannot move independently like us,” said the man, who was reached over the phone and gave his name as Muzaffarul Haq. He claimed the Swat militants had no al Qaeda or foreign connections, but that they supported all groups that shared the goal of imposing Islamic law.

“With the grace of Allah, there is no dearth of funds, weapons or rations,” he said. “Our women are providing cooked food for those who are struggling in Allah’s path. Our children are getting prepared for jihad.”

CBS News

The bomber was apparently targeting a passing convoy of NATO troops, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, but several witnesses said there were no security forces, either Afghan or foreign, in the immediate vicinity of the blast.

The explosion occurred about 150 yards from a major traffic circle and a heavily-guarded entrance to an access road leading to the American Embassy, raising speculation that the bomber may have intended to blow himself up there but detonated his device prematurely.

According to witnesses, the car was weaving through traffic, then hit a pedestrian and a series of cars before exploding.

“I thought he was drunk,” said Salih Muhammad, 35, a street cleaner who was part of a nine-man crew working that stretch of road when the attack occurred. “Then there was this huge explosion.”

Two of the cleaning crew members were wounded in the blast and their co-workers rushed them to a nearby hospital.

Mr. Muhammad stood with another street cleaner outside the emergency room waiting for news of their colleagues. His hands and orange work clothes were covered in the blood of one of his colleagues whom he had carried from the street.

“This is life in Afghanistan and we’re accustomed to it,” said the second street cleaner, Mohammad Sabir, 49.

Noor Agah Akramzada, director of the hospital, said he had received 10 of the wounded and the body of one of the victims. A hand-written notice taped to the wall of the hospital listed the names and ages of the wounded.

Officials at a military hospital in the neighborhood said they had received at least seven other wounded civilians.

Within minutes of the attack, the victims had been carted away and government investigator had begun sifting through the wreckage.

But more than an hour later, the bloodied, twisted body of the suicide bomber still lay in the street, about 50 yards from the blast site where only the mangled front end of his car remained.

Qari Ayob, 37, the owner of a small store near the blast site, said he was in his shop at the time of the attack. “At first I felt a huge flame and then heard a very big explosion,” he said. “I felt as if the flame came into my shop. Then a darkness came and it blinded me for a while.”

He said that he felt lucky because at that time of day he usually stood out front of his shop warming up in the sunshine. But Thursday morning he did not, he said.

As he spoke, workers were cleaning up glass from his shattered shop window. The store would remain open for business, Mr. Ayob said. “There is no alternative,” he said. “This is my job. I need to continue.”

International Herald Tribune

A Taliban spokesman rejected on Monday the offer of safe passage and reiterated that foreign troops had to leave before negotiations could start.

“As long as foreign occupiers remain in Afghanistan, we aren’t ready for talks because they hold the power and talks won’t bear fruit,” Mullah Brother, the purported deputy leader of the Taliban, told the Reuters news agency by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

“We are safe in Afghanistan and we have no need for Hamid Karzai’s offer of safety”.

Brother said the Taliban jihad, or holy war, will continue.

The Taliban has ruled out any talks as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan.

Karzai said on Sunday that the condition was “unacceptable”.

Zabiullah Mujahid, another Taliban spokesman, confirmed the group’s position, saying Karzai’s statement is not new.

“He has been saying this for the past seven years. But no brave fighter will accept this and we will not respect any law or constitution made by infidels,” he said.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will continue its jihad until foreign forces are out of Afghanistan and Afghanistan is independent.”

War-weary electorate

Analysts say Karzai’s safe-passage offer is not so much in the expectation that Omar would take up the offer, but to emphasise his message to other Taliban.

Karzai also hopes to win a presidential election next year and wants to be seen by a war-weary electorate as making every effort to bring peace, analysts say.

At least 70,000 foreign troops, around half of them American, are struggling against the Taliban, whose influence and attacks are spreading in the south, east and west.

Barack Obama, the US president-elect, has suggested that he is open to holding talks with more moderate Taliban leaders to explore whether the Iraq strategy would work in Afghanistan.

A tentative first step towards talks was taken in September when a group of pro-government Afghan officials and former Taliban officials met in Saudi Arabia for discussions on how to end the conflict.

But the Taliban derided those talks and repeated their demand that foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

However, Afghan government officials have said they expected another round of talks to be held.

On the ground, there has been no let-up in violence. A roadside bomb aimed at Afghan soldiers in Panjwayi, a district in the southern province of Kandahar, killed four civilians, while a suicide bomb attack in the same region killed three other people, an official said.

The attack on the Afghan army patrol lightly damaged their vehicle, and instead hit a nearby group of civilians, Zalmai Ayubi, the Kandahar governor’s spokesman, said.

Four civilians were killed and eight others were wounded in the explosion, Ayubi said. He accused the Taliban of planting the bomb.

Kandahar bombing

In the second attack in Kandahar, two police officers and a civilian died when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of a government office in the district of Dand, Ayubi said.

Three other police were wounded when officers tried to stop the bomber from entering the offices of the district chief, he said.

The Kandahar governor’s office told Al Jazeera that the attacker had disguised himself in a police uniform and attempted to enter the district chief’s office.

He was shot by police but was still able to detonate his explosives.

The previous day, a suicide attacker killed two Afghan civilians and wounded two German soldiers serving with Nato in the northern province of Baghlan.

Two US soldiers were injured on the same day in a bomb attack on the outskirts of the western city of Herat, the US military said.

Al Jazeera English

The report also accused the Taliban militants of seeking shelter near a wedding party in the Kandahar province’s Shah Wali Kot district shortly after ambushing a coalition patrol on Monday, according to the findings compiled by the governor of Kandahar province.

The report said that another 27 civilians were wounded in the strike. It added that the government has already paid $2,000 to families of each victim, and $100 to those who were wounded — a standard practice in these cases.

The majority of the civilians killed were woman and children, the report said.

After the strikes and the clashes, villager Abdul Jalil, a grape farmer whose niece was getting married, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene of the bombing that U.S. troops and Taliban fighters had been fighting about a half mile from his home.

Fighter aircraft destroyed his compound and killed 37 people, Jalil said than.

Following these deaths, President Hamid Karzai urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to help stop the killing of civilians in coalition operations, actions which undermine popular support for the Afghan government and the international mission.

On Thursday, another coalition airstrike killed seven civilians and 13 Taliban militants in the northwestern Badghis province, Afghan officials said.

Civilian casualties in operations by foreign troops have strained relations between Karzai’s government and its foreign backers. Despite U.S. and NATO pledges to take greater care in targeting, the incidents have continued.

U.S. and NATO commanders often blame Taliban fighters for using civilians as human shields, thus causing civilian casualties.

The U.S. military said Thursday that civilians “reportedly attempted to leave the area, but the insurgents forced them to remain.”

The statement did not say where the U.S. got that report from. It quoted Kandahar’s police chief as saying several civilians were injured while attempting to leave the area.

Separately, a clash between police and the Taliban in neighboring Zabul province on Friday, killed seven insurgents and wounded two policemen, said provincial deputy police chief Jalani Khan.

More than 5,300 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to a tally compiled by The Associated Press based on figures provided by the Afghan government and international officials.

Afghan report: 37 civilians killed in US strike – International Herald Tribune