Wednesday, September 09, 2009 KABUL: A suicide car bomber killed three Afghan civilians in Afghanistan's capital Tuesday, while four U.S. soldiers died during fighting in a northern province. An Afghan police official said the attacker in Kabul struck a NATO convoy outside the military base at the international airport. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which wounded another six Afghan civilians and three international soldiers - two Americans and a Belgian. Also Tuesday, the U.S. military said four U.S. troops were killed while fighting insurgents in northeastern Kunar province. The French news agency said 10 Afghan soldiers also died in the clash.Meanwhile, NATO acknowledged for the first time that Afghan civilians were killed in last Friday's air strike on two fuel tankers in northern Kunduz province and ordered a full investigation.The commander of NATO's force in Afghanistan, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, named a Canadian officer, Major General C.S. Sullivan, to lead the inquiry.
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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