18-09-06, 11:47
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Too many more coming home 
Quote:
"Multiple" NATO casualties in Afghan suicide blast
Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:23 AM BST
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked a NATO patrol in southern Afghanistan on Monday killing several soldiers, Afghan police said, a day after NATO declared the area free of Taliban insurgents.
The Taliban, who have unleashed a wave of attacks on government and foreign troops this year, claimed responsibility for the blast in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province.
Afghan police said a suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops while they were giving out aid.
Several Canadian soldiers had been killed and about a dozen wounded, said a police officer. About 25 civilians, most of them children, had also been wounded, said the officer, who declined to be identified.
NATO said the blast had caused "multiple casualties" among the troops. It did not elaborate except to say there were also civilian casualties.
The Taliban and their militant allies have unleashed a wave of attacks on government and foreign troops this year. Security forces have responded with offensives in the south and east.
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said on Sunday NATO and Afghan government troops had forced Taliban insurgents out of Panjwai district, about 25 km (15 miles) west of Kandahar city, after a two-week offensive codenamed Operation Medusa.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said by telephone the bomb was set off by a young Taliban suicide bomber from Kandahar.
The level of Afghan violence, the most intense since the Taliban were ousted five years ago, has raised concern about the prospects for a country that had been seen as a success in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
About 130 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them Americans, British and Canadians.
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