Thursday, August 06, 2009 KABUL: An Afghan police chief says a roadside bomb hit a group of people traveling to a wedding in southern Afghanistan and, 21 civilians were killed. The Afghan Ministry of Defense confirmed the Wednesday attack and said at least 20 people were killed. Helmand provincial police chief Assadullah Sherzad says women and children were among the dead in Garmser district, where roadside bombs are frequently used to attack foreign and Afghan forces. Thousands of U.S. Marines and British soldiers are conducting offensives in Helmand, one of the centers of the Taliban insurgency.
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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