DTN News: Afghanistan TODAY March 1, 2010 ~ Car Bombs Kill NATO Soldier, Five Afghans

DTN News: Afghanistan TODAY March 1, 2010 ~ Car Bombs Kill NATO Soldier, Five Afghans Source: DTN News / AFP By Nasrat Shoib (NSI News Source Info) KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - March 1, 2010: Bombers targeted the police headquarters in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and a NATO convoy Monday, detonating car bombs that killed six people including a foreign soldier.U.S. soldiers walk around a wrecked armored personnel carrier of the NATO forces after it was targeted by a suicide attacker in Kandahar south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday, March 1, 2010. A suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy Monday outside the major southern Afghan city, killing one NATO service member and four Afghan civilians, officials said. The violence brought to three the number of bomb attacks to strike southern Afghanistan in 24 hours, marking a surge in Taliban-linked violence more than two weeks after thousands of US-led troops launched a major offensive. A suicide bomber drove his car into a NATO convoy on the main highway from Kandahar towards the district of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan, sending an armoured vehicle plummeting into a river, an AFP reporter said. Hours later, a station wagon packed with explosives blew up outside the main provincial police headquarters in Kandahar city -- the spiritual capital of the Taliban movement -- killing one person and wounding 16 others, police said. The Taliban, waging an insurgency to evict the more than 120,000 NATO and US-led troops now in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the first attack at Tarang, about 12 kilometres (eight miles) outside the city of Kandahar.Afghan police officers and the U.S. soldiers, bottom, gather at the scene of a suicide attack in Kandahar south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday, March 1, 2010. A suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy Monday outside the major southern Afghan city, killing one NATO service member and four Afghan civilians, officials said. The bombings highlighted the threat posed by the militia across much of the south and underscored the challenge facing a "surge" of US and NATO troops executing a last-ditch strategy to bring an end to the eight-year war. Foreign troops cordoned off the scene as helicopters flew overhead after the convoy attack. Sergeant Jeff Loftin, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said one foreign soldier was killed and "a few" injured but did not disclose their nationalities. The Afghan interior ministry said the attacker drove a car bomb into a NATO convoy killing "four of our innocent civilian compatriots". "All the dead are burned from the blast flames," said Doctor Mohammad Ibrahim from the main civilian hospital in Kandahar. Speaking to AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the convoy attack and alleged that 11 foreign soldiers died. The Taliban routinely exaggerate the impact of attacks on US-led and NATO troops, whose numbers are set to rise to 150,000 by August as part of a new war strategy adopted by US President Barack Obama and key allies. Another vehicle blew up in the car park of the Kandahar provincial police headquarters later Monday, shattering windows in nearby buildings for up to several hundred metres. "In the remote controlled car bomb explosion at Kandahar police HQ car park, one civilian working for the police headquarters was killed and 16 others were wounded," said deputy provincial police chief Fazel Mohammad Shairzad. Nine of the wounded were policemen and seven civilians, he said. Monday's attacks come a day after a bomb planted by the Taliban killed 11 civilians, including women and children, in Helmand, the province neighbouring Kandahar and where 15,000 troops have been waging a massive offensive. The Taliban, their affiliated networks and loyalists have focused their fight to bring down the Western-backed Afghan government on the south but are said to have a significant presence across virtually the entire country. Since February 13, US, NATO and Afghan troops have been fighting to drive the Taliban from the Marjah and Nad Ali areas of Helmand, where Afghan authorities say they are in control since hoisting the national flag last week. In what has been billed as the biggest military assault since the 2001 invasion, Operation Mushtarak ("Together") is aimed at driving the Taliban from their strongholds and is part of Washington's new strategy to end the war. Although commanders say the fighting is now winding down and Kandahar will be next on the list, authorities have been reluctant to return thousands of displaced villagers because of innumerable mines left by the Taliban. The new US-led counter-insurgency strategy, designed to allow Western troops to be drawn down by mid-2011, entails carrying out military operations then establishing civilian security and services such as hospitals and schools.