KABUL: Eleven Taliban suicide bombers struck government buildings in a bold, daylong assault in eastern Afghanistan, sparking running gun battles with U.S. and Afghan forces that killed 20 people and wounded three Americans, officials said.Troops freed 20 hostages taken by insurgents. The battle in Khost, a border city that houses a major American base, came as the U.S. made leadership changes that demonstrate a clear break from Bush-era appointees, with President Barack Obama taking charge of an increasingly bloody eight-year war that the Pentagon once believed had been won.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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