Tuesday, August 04, 2009 KABUL: Eight rockets struck the Afghan capital Tuesday, including one that landed near the US embassy, wounding a man and a child, the government said.The Taliban claimed responsibility for the dawn attacks, saying its fighters targeted Afghan soldiers and the Kabul international airport. Eight rockets landed in various parts of the city, at least one of them in the US embassy's neighbourhood and others near the airport and in the east, the interior ministry said. One child was wounded from shattered glass and a man was also hurt, but it was unclear how, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told foreign news agency. A ninth rocket was discovered and defused, he said.
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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