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Bomb strikes NATO convoy in Kandahar

A roadside blast struck a NATO convoy in southern Afghanistan and wounded four alliance soldiers on Saturday, while fighting in three separate regions of the country left more than 100 militants dead, officials said.

The NATO convoy was attacked west of Kandahar city, and the four wounded soldiers were evacuated to a nearby military hospital, said Major John Thomas, a NATO spokesman.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, said a suicide bomber had attacked the convoy.

A reporter at the site of the blast said the wounded soldiers were Canadian, but their nationalities could not immediately be officially confirmed.

The attack happened a day after officials said fierce fighting in three separate regions of Afghanistan killed more than 100 militants, amid rapidly rising violence five years into the US-led effort to defeat the Taliban.

Shalizai Dedar, governor of northeastern Kunar Province, said villagers were claiming that airstrikes by foreign troops had killed dozens of civilians on Friday, but he said he could not confirm the report.

The fighting -- in the south, west and northeast -- follows a trend of sharply rising bloodshed over the past five weeks, among the deadliest periods since the US-led invasion in 2001.

Insurgency-related violence in June alone killed more than 1,000 people, including 200 civilians, according to a count based on information from Western and Afghan officials.

More than 3,100 people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, according to a tally. About 4,000 people died in the violence all of last year.

US-led coalition and NATO spokesmen on Friday emphasized that ground commanders had evaluated the terrain in Kunar province to prevent civilian casualties, but Dedar said villagers had reported that an initial airstrike killed 10 civilians -- and that a second killed about 30 people who were trying to bury the dead.

Dedar said he could not confirm the reports of civilian deaths. He said about 60 militants died in the battle.

US and NATO officials have said Taliban militants threaten villagers into claiming that attacks killed civilians.

"There were some number of insurgents that were killed. We have no reason to believe that any civilians were killed at this time," NATO's Thomas said. He said soldiers called in airstrikes on "positively identified enemy firing positions" in a remote area.
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