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.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS