A roadside bomb hit a US military vehicle in southeastern Afghanis-tan and killed two soldiers and an Afghan interpreter, underscoring the rising cost of American operations aimed at preventing militants from disrupting the country's first post-Taliban election.
One US soldier also was injured when the blast hit the Humvee on Saturday in Ghazni province, the US military said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the bombing about 230km southwest of the capital, Kabul. But the area lies in territory near Pakistan where suspected Taliban-led rebels regularly clash with US and Afghan troops.
The latest deaths bring to about 58 the number of American soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan since US forces entered the country in 2001 to drive the Taliban from power and attack its al-Qaeda allies.
With accidents and deaths elsewhere, including several plane crashes, more than 130 American soldiers have died since Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in response to the Sept. 11 attacks in the US.
Twenty-three of the combat deaths in Afghanistan have occurred this year, making 2004 the deadliest year yet and undermining assertions by American and Afghan officials that militants are on the defensive and security is improving.
Violence has intensified in recent months as the country prepares for the election.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
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