• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

US soldiers shoot Afghan car-bomber: police

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 April 2006, 06:51 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category