US soldiers shoot Afghan car-bomber: police

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – U.S. troops shot a
suicide car bomber in Afghanistan on Wednesday as he tried to
ram his vehicle into their convoy, police said.

The car bomb exploded but it was not known if any U.S.
troops were hurt.

The attack, on the outskirts of the eastern city of
Jalalabad, came as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan
met Afghan and Pakistani commanders for security talks after a
surge in violence on both sides of their border.

Jalalabad police spokesman Abdul Ghafour said the car bomb
blew up seconds after U.S. troops shot the driver dead on a
main road leading to the Khyber Pass and Pakistan.

A U.S. military spokeswoman said she had no immediate
information about the incident.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent weeks since
the Taliban announced last month they had launched a spring
offensive in their campaign to rid the country of foreign
forces.

Dozens of people, including many insurgents, have been
killed in a wave of suicide and roadside bombs, ambushes and
clashes.

Two U.S. soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb in the
southern province of Zabul on Tuesday, the U.S. military
spokeswoman said.

U.S.-led troops wounded six civilians including an infant
and her mother, in separate incidents on Monday and Tuesday in
southeastern Afghanistan after their cars failed to stop when
ordered to by patrols, provincial officials said.

The U.S. military said two men were wounded when they
failed to stop at a checkpoint.

Violence has also surged in Pakistan’s rugged,
semi-autonomous tribal lands on the Afghan border, where al
Qaeda-linked militants and ethnic Pashtun tribesmen have been
battling security forces.

Pakistani, U.S. and Afghan military officials held a
meeting of their so-called Tripartite Commission in Pakistan on
Wednesday with the United States keen to promote greater
security cooperation between its two important allies.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been rocked
in recent months by fresh Afghan complaints that insurgents are
able to launch attacks into Afghanistan from the safety of
Pakistani territory.

Pakistan has dismissed the Afghan complaints and raised
questions about the growing influence of its old rival, India,
in Afghanistan.