Suicide attack against NATO forces kills Afghan child

Mar 1, 2009, 15:27 GMT

Kabul - An Afghan child was killed and five civilians were wounded when a suicide bomber targeted a convoy of NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan, while eight militants were killed in two clashes elsewhere in the country, officials said Sunday.

The bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near a convoy of NATO forces outside of Nangahar provincial capital on Sunday morning, wounding six people including three children, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the provincial governor said.

One of the injured children died of his wounds, the NATO military said in a statement, adding that none of its soldiers in the convoy were hurt.

Meanwhile, the Afghan Defence Ministry and US-led coalition forces said in statements on Sunday that their forces killed eight suspected insurgents in two separate clashes in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.

Four militants were killed in a fight with US-led military forces in Maiwand district of southern Kandahar province, while four others were killed in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan in a clash with Afghan soldiers.

Taliban militants, who were driven from power in late 2001 in a US-led military invasion, have stepped up their attacks in southern and eastern regions of the country as the weather warmed.

Some 17,000 US soldiers are expected to arrive in Afghanistan by summer this year to enable more than 70,000 international troops and over 160,000 Afghan security forces to quell the Taliban-led insurgency in 2009.