Three Australian commandos were killed when a helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan yesterday, in the country’s deadliest single incident in the long-running conflict, officials said.
One other NATO soldier was also killed, while three personnel were seriously wounded, armed forces chief Angus Houston and Defense Minister John Faulkner said, stressing that the chopper was not brought down by enemy fire.
Faulkner described it as a “tragic day” for Australia and its armed forces.
In a separate incident on Sunday, two bombs hidden in push carts exploded less than a half hour apart in one of Afghanistan’s most dangerous provinces, underscoring the continued security threat despite years of trying to bring peace to the unstable south.
The double explosions in Helmand Province were just two in a series of attacks reported over the weekend across the country.
They came a day after a UN report painted a grim picture of the security situation in Afghanistan, saying roadside bombings and ssassinations have soared in the first four months of the year.
In Washington, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Fox News Sunday while the war is a “tough pull,” momentum was shifting toward the US troops and their Afghan and international partners.
US troops are hoping to gain the upper hand before US President Barack Obama’s July deadline next year to begin withdrawing US forces, now numbering more than 94,000.
It’s unclear how troops would leave, but Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, told ABC’s This Week the July date is firm.
The double bombing occurred early on Sunday in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province. The first explosion in front of a bank killed a young girl and a woman and wounded at least 14 other people, the Afghan Ministry of Interior said.
“I was going to get my salary from Kabul bank and there was a blast,” Afghan policeman Abdul Tawab said at the scene.
He was among Afghan security forces already at the first bombing site when they heard the second blast, which occurred in front of a high school about 3km away.
Five people, including an Afghan soldier, were injured in the second explosion less than a half hour after the first, according to Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
He said a third person had died in one of the two explosions, but it was unclear which one.
Meanwhile, 20 Taliban suspects have been freed from jails in Afghanistan as part of efforts to persuade Islamist insurgents to make peace, an Afghan official said yesterday.
The prisoners included a dozen men detained by the US military at Bagram Air Base, two under police custody in Kabul and six from a small prison in the eastern province Khost, the official said.
“They were detained for suspected links to armed opposition groups,” said Nasrullah Stanikzai, adviser to President Hamid Karzai and a member of a government committee assigned to review the cases of the prisoners. “We reviewed their cases one by one, but there was not enough evidence against them.”
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