Afghan Attacks Leave British Soldier Dead

A pair of nearly simultaneous attacks, one suicide, on British and German bases near the Afghan capital Wednesday left one British soldier dead and at least five other foreigners wounded, police and peacekeepers said.

The attacks came during a memorial ceremony for a Canadian soldier killed in a suicide attack in Kabul just the day before. An Afghan civilian was also killed in that attack.

On Wednesday, one British soldier was killed near their base in Kabul, said Canadian Maj. Gen. Andrew Leslie, deputy commander of the security force, speaking at the end of the memorial service at the Canadian base.

“Initial reports indicate that one of our British comrades lost his life and there have been several injuries,” he said, adding that another explosive device was detonated outside the main German base.

A spokesman for the NATO-led security force, Lt. Col. Joerg Langer, said one British soldier died after a car bomb hit a British patrol at about 11 a.m. local time.

However, the British Defense Ministry in London said there had been no deaths in the attack, but some troops were injured.

Just east of Kabul near the German peacekeepers’ base, a suicide bomber in a taxi detonated an explosion that injured five foreigners, said Qasim Mangal, a local police chief.

International troops and Afghan authorities closed off the scene of the attack, on the Jalalabad Road, about 1 1/4 miles from the Germans’ base. From nearby, two burned out jeeps could be seen – apparently Land Rovers that are used by British troops.

The blast blew out the windows of a bathhouse nearby, sending people scurrying from the showers, said Zulgai, 20, a worker there who like many Afghans uses only one name. He said he had seen three injured foreigners and two Afghans transported from the scene.

“It was a very strong sound,” Zulgai said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack and alleged it would be the start of a campaign of suicide bombings across the country. The attack on Tuesday also wounded three Canadian troops and eight civilians, including a Frenchman, when the bomber struck a convoy of three open-topped jeeps.

At Wednesday’s memorial, at least one of the new blasts was heard during the ceremony that took place as a heavy snowstorm buffeted the city.

The escalating violence comes the same week that President Hamid Karzai signed the country’s post-Taliban constitution into law, with hopes that it can help bring the fractured country together after more than two decades of war.