Suicide attack wounds US soldier, Afghans

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide attacker drove
a car bomb into a convoy of foreign troops in southern
Afghanistan on Monday, wounding a U.S. soldier as well as an
Afghan woman and a child, officials said.

The attacker died in the blast in the center of the
southern city of Kandahar, Assadullah Khalid, the governor of
Kandahar province, told Reuters.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody said the
American soldier was being treated for “minor injuries.”

Residents said there were also Canadian troops in the
convoy.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said the
bomber was a Taliban guerrilla and claimed that five U.S.
soldiers had been killed.

Kandahar has been the scene of a spate of attacks,
including suicide bombings, by Taliban guerrillas in recent
months.

The attacks have come amid U.S. plans to cut American troop
numbers in Afghanistan to about 16,500 from 19,000 by the
spring while NATO, which runs a separate peacekeeping operation
in the country, deploys troops in the volatile south.

More than 50 U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in
Afghanistan in 2005, the bloodiest period for U.S. forces since
they toppled the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda chief
Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks.

As part of the NATO expansion, Canada plans to deploy more
troops in the troubled south this year along with Britain and
the Netherlands.