Two suicide bombers on bicycles killed four people and wounded 31 in Afghanistan’s eastern Laghman Province yesterday, provincial officials said.
The attacks come after a spike in violence over the past week and as NATO leaders gather for a second day at a summit in Lisbon where they will discuss plans to start transitioning security responsibility to Afghans.
The first bomber detonated his explosives at a police checkpoint in Alisheng district and the second struck several hundred meters further back, Provincial Governor Mohammad Iqbal Azizi said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the hardline Islamist group had carried out the attack and that the target had been Afghan police and intelligence officials.
“We are not sure what the target of the second bomber was, but we think he may have detonated his explosives prematurely,” Azizi said.
A string of recent attacks are a reminder of the massive and growing military challenge posed by the Afghan insurgency, as US President Barack Obama and his administration gear up for a review of the war strategy next month.
Civilian and military casualties this year have been the highest since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, despite the presence of around 150,000 foreign troops, and violence has spread to previously peaceful northern provinces.
At least 2,224 foreign troops have been killed since the start of the war, more than 650 of those this year, making it the deadliest year of the war so far.
But civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting as they become caught up in the crossfire. According to the UN figures, 1,271 ordinary Afghans were killed in the first six months of this year, a 21 percent jump on the same period last year.
SURVEY RESULTS
Most people in two key Afghan provinces that are witnessing the fiercest fighting between foreign forces and the Taliban have not heard of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US, according to a new survey.
Research conducted in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar last month suggested 92 percent of the 1,000 respondents were unaware of the attacks on Washington and New York that prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
The findings, published late on Friday by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) think tank, come as NATO leaders met in Lisbon to determine the transition of responsibility for security to Afghan forces.
However, ICOS suggested that even after nine years of conflict, with military and civilian casualties at their highest, NATO still needs to do more to convince ordinary Afghans that their presence in the country is beneficial.
A total of 42 percent of a further 500 men questioned in northern Parwan and Panjshir provinces were unable to name positive aspects of democracy.
The survey suggested that 40 percent of respondents in the south believe foreign troops are intent on destroying Islam or want to occupy or destroy the country.
A majority (61 percent) in Helmand and Kandahar were also pessimistic about the ability of the Afghan police and military to provide security after the transition.
And 81 percent said they believed al-Qaeda — which claimed responsibility for 9/11 from Afghanistan under Taliban protection — would return if the militants regained power and would use Afghanistan to attack the West.
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