55 Taliben among 70 killed in Afghanistan

KHOST (Afghanistan)—A suicide bomber has blown himself up in a restaurant in eastern Afghanistan, killing 15 Afghans, as NATO said 55 rebels had died in fierce clashes that also killed one of its soldiers. The violence was the worst in weeks after a lull in a Taliban-led insurgency that has left around 3,700 people dead this year, four times more than last year, with rebels accounting for most of the victims.
The suicide attacker was in a restaurant in the remote town of Urgun in the eastern province of Paktika and blew himself up when the Urgun district chief walked in, the interior ministry said. “Fifteen people were martyred and 25 others including the district chief, Mohammad Mobin, were wounded,” it said Sunday.
Paktika provincial governor Mohammad Akram Kheplwak gave the same toll. He said most of the casualties were soldiers with a militia hired by US forces, who have a base in the area, to assist with patrols and searches. The commander of the militia and the governor of an adjoining district were among the wounded, he said. Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary blamed the attack on the “enemies of Afghanistan and of the government.” This often-used term generally refers to fighters with the extremist Taliban movement driven from power five years ago. The hardliners’ insurgency features regular suicide and roadside bombings.
The small hotel and some shops around it were badly damaged, said witness Mohammad Shah Faizi who saw some of the bodies being pulled from the rubble. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the blast caused buildings to collapse and civilians were among the dead.
It was the worst such incident since a suicide bombing in Kabul killed 16 people, including two US soldiers, in September. Afghan and ISAF officials meanwhile reported a string of Taliban attacks in the south of the country which killed nearly 55 rebels and a NATO soldier.
The heaviest death toll was in the province of Uruzgan, where ISAF said its soldiers were attacked by a “large number of insurgents” Saturday. ISAF soldiers returned fire and called in war planes. “Initial battle damage assessment indicates that approximately 50 insurgents were killed in the attack. Regrettably, an ISAF soldier was also killed,” it said.
The force of 31,000 soldiers drawn from 37 nations does not release the nationalities of its casualties, leaving that to the home country. Most of the troops in Uruzgan are with a 2,100-strong Dutch deployment to Afghanistan or from a 200-soldier Australian force. Nearly 120 foreign soldiers have died in combat in Afghanistan this year, up from just over 70 last year.
There were also several clashes in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar Friday and Saturday, with Afghan and ISAF soldiers coming under attack, the force said. “Close air support was requested and engaged the insurgents, killing approximately five of them.—Agencies