Four foreign soldiers, 9 Afghan civilians among 27 killed 144 (Roundup)

By Farhad Peikar Oct 14, 2008, 14:40 GMT

Kabul - Gunmen killed a senior provincial official in southern Afghanistan while four NATO soldiers and nine Afghan civilians were killed and several others were wounded in roadside bomb attacks, officials said Tuesday.

Elsewhere in the country an Afghan army soldier and 11 Taliban militants were killed in separate incidents.

Meanwhile, in Kabul, Afghan defence minister told a press conference that the violence this year had got deadlier because the success of the US military in Iraq had forced well-trained and well- equipped foreign fighters to pour into Afghanistan.

'There is no doubt that the situation worsened and there have been more attacks this year,' Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghan defence minister told reporters in his office.

Wardak attributed the increase in attacks and death toll to the 'success made by coalition forces in Iraq and some other issues in some of the neighbouring countries that have made it possible that there is a considerable increase in the foreign fighters.'

He said the militants backed by foreign fighters were 'well trained and more sophisticated, and their coordination is much better.'

In the latest attack, a remote-controlled roadside bomb hit a bus in Deh Rawood district of the southern province of Uruzgan on Tuesday morning, killing nine civilians including three children and wounding six others, Juma Gul Hemat, the provincial police chief, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Hemat blamed 'enemies of Afghanistan' for the blast, a term often used by Afghan officials to describe Taliban militants.

'The enemies always want to bring destruction for this country and even do not have any regards for the innocent civilians,' he said, adding that police forces were deployed to the area to track down the perpetrators.

In another incident, Gunmen on a motorbike Tuesday morning killed Doost Mohammad Arghistani, director of the Martyrs and Disabled Department, when he was on his way to his office in southern city of Kandahar, capital of the province of the same name, said Zelmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Ayoubi said Arghistani's driver was also wounded in the attack that he blamed on Taliban militants.

In another incident, three NATO-led soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan, the military said.

The soldiers were part of more than 50,000 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that have been deployed to Afghanistan from 40 nations following the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

A US-led coalition soldier was killed and several others were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan on Monday evening, the US military said in a statement.

ISAF and US military statements did not reveal the nationalities of the dead soldiers, nor did they say where in the eastern and southern regions the incident took place.

Most of the forces operating in the eastern region under the alliance's command and those who also serve under the banner of coalition forces are from the US.

The Taliban hanged an Afghan army officer from a tree in Chak district of Wardak province, west of the capital Kabul on Monday, said Adam Khan Serat, spokesman for the provincial governor.

The militants dragged the officer out of his house in the district and then hanged him from a tree, he said. The officer, who served in the army in Paktai province, had been visiting his family on vacation.

Coalition forces meanwhile killed five militants in Rashidan district of neighbouring Ghazni province on Monday as the joint forces targeted a Taliban sub-commander in the area, the US military said in a statement.

The targeted commander, who was among those killed, was believed to have coordinated direct attacks against Afghan and coalition forces, as well as facilitated the movement of foreign fighters into the area, the statement said.

Militants attacked a food convoy in Darzak area of western Badghis province on Monday night, Mohammad Ayoub Naizyar, provincial police chief, said.

The police forces escorting the convoy fought back and killed six of the militants, he said, adding that no police personnel were killed in the firefight.

Taliban-led attacks are on the rise in Afghanistan, as the militants, who lost power in the US military invasion in late 2001, have vowed to topple the Western-backed Afghan government and expel some 70,000 international forces from the country.

More than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents, but including more than 200 international forces and hundreds of Afghan forces as well as some 1,500 civilians - have been killed so far this year, according to figures provided by Afghan and international military sources.