Four U.S. soldiers killed in Afghan blast

By Robert Birsel

KABUL (Reuters) – Four U.S. soldiers were killed and three
wounded in a bomb attack in Afghanistan on Sunday as they were
trying to clear militants from an area before an election next
month, the U.S. military said.

The three wounded men were hurt in secondary explosions as
they tried to pull their fellow soldiers to safety after the
first blast in Zabul province, in the south of the country.

“Attacks such as this strengthen, not weaken, the resolve
of the U.S./Coalition, Afghan National Security Forces, and the
Afghan people,” said a U.S. commander, Major-General Jason
Kamiya.

U.S. forces have now suffered 47 deaths in combat in
Afghanistan this year making it the worst period since they
arrived to oust the Taliban in October 2001.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in Dai
Chopan district. A Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi,
speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, said
Taliban fighters had planted the improvised explosive device.

Two Afghan government soldiers were killed in a similar
blast in another part of troubled Zabul, a provincial official
said.

The U.S. unit was involved in operations in support of the
September 18 parliamentary and provincial elections, which the
Taliban and other militants have condemned and vowed to
disrupt.

“The unit’s mission is part of a much larger operation to
disrupt enemy forces and to thereby provide a safe environment
for upcoming September elections,” the U.S. military said.

The Afghan government and U.S. officials say the militants
will fail in their bid to spoil the vote.

Sunday’s casualty toll is the worst for U.S. forces in
Afghanistan since 16 American servicemen were killed in June
when their helicopter was shot down as they tried to rescue
four trapped U.S. special forces soldiers.

Only one of the special forces soldiers survived.

Also on Sunday, suspected Taliban militants killed a senior
pro-government cleric as he was walking to a mosque in Kandahar
province, also in the south, a local official said.

Gunmen have this year killed several members of a
government-appointed religious council in the south and east,
where the militants are most active.

In June, Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz, the head of Kandahar’s
religious council and a prominent Taliban critic, was shot dead
and a suicide attack attributed to the Taliban killed more than
20 during his funeral at a mosque a day later.

The Taliban say the clerics are legitimate targets because
they are preaching against the insurgents who have declared a
holy war against the government and foreign forces.