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Bomb attack kills 11 in Afghanistan

A suicide car-bomber attacked a convoy of US-led troops in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 11 people, including a US soldier, and wounding 58, the US military said.

Earlier, a US military spokesman said 20 people had been killed in the attack on the outskirts of the eastern city of Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan.

Afghanistan is facing its worst spell of violence this year, the bloodiest since the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001, raising fears about the success of international efforts to bring peace and to develop the country.

The bomber struck the convoy near a crowded market, where people were trading sheep, cows, goats and other animals, said Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.

An Associated Press photographer said that a US military vehicle, two civilian vehicles and two rickshaws were destroyed.

The wounded civilians were transported to at least three hospitals in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, Khan said. The death toll was likely to rise, he said.

Ten of those killed were civilians, as were the 58 wounded.

“The enemies of Afghanistan committed another barbaric act,” Bashary said, referring to Taliban insurgents and their al-Qaeda allies.

Separately, two British soldiers were killed in the southern province of Helmand while on patrol on Wednesday with Afghan soldiers, when their vehicle was blown up by a bomb, the British Ministry of Defence said.

Also on Wednesday, suicide bombers struck in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar killing more than 10 people.

Taliban spokesmen could not be contacted for comment.

Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of Britons want their country’s troops to withdraw from Afghanistan within a year, an ICM poll published by the BBC yesterday found.

Of 1,013 people polled, 68 percent said troops should come home within 12 months. The proportion of women advocating a withdrawal was 75 percent, while 59 percent of the men asked wanted the troops to return.

Britain currently has 8,000 troops in southern Afghanistan and is likely to come under pressure to stock-up the contingent when the new US administration takes over in January.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, while not at present having committed himself to an increase in deployment, has said that Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan is vital to stop “terrorism coming to Britain.”

On Tuesday, Britain’s new defense secretary, John Hutton, said British forces in Afghanistan were crucial to British security and the conflict “must be seen through.”

While there has been little public protest in Britain over the deployment in Afghanistan, widespread disaffection with military involvement abroad became clear over Iraq.
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