Tuesday, June 09, 2009 ASADABAD: A blast near a U.S. troop convoy in Afghanistan killed at least one child and wounded 34 civilians on Tuesday, officials said, but witnesses blamed a U.S. soldier for throwing a grenade into a crowd. Abdul Jalal, chief of police in Kunar province, said officials were investigating whether the blast in the provincial capital Asadabad caused by a grenade thrown by U.S. troops or by an insurgent attack.A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul said he was checking the reports. Several of the wounded and other witnesses told a U.S. soldier had thrown a grenade after the military convoy had stopped because a vehicle's tyre had burst.
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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