Canadian troops targeted by bomber
NATO says four of its soldiers killed
Canadian troops in Panjwaii, Afghanistan.
Photograph by : Les Perreaux, Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up in a crowd of children clamouring for pens and books from Canadian troops in Afghanistan Monday, killing four NATO soldiers and a number of civilians, police and NATO said.
Police said around two dozen children were also hurt in the blast that struck a Canadian patrol in volatile Kandahar province, a day after NATO said it had successfully completed a major anti-Taliban operation nearby.
The extremist Taliban movement said it carried out the suicide attack.
"What I can confirm is four ISAF soldiers were killed," Major Quentin Innis, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told AFP. Others were wounded but he could not yet say how many.
"There were a number of Afghan civilians that were also killed," Innis said without giving a figure.
A witness said the suicide bomber had ridden a bike into a crowd of laughing children as they gathered around the soldiers at the scene in the Zhari area around 35 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kandahar city.
"Kids were running towards the Canadian convoy because they were giving out pens and notebooks to the children," bystander Mohammed Karim told AFP.
"There was a crowd of kids laughing and shouting, 'Give me one, give me one'. At this time a man riding on a bicycle approached the crowd and detonated in the crowd.
"With the explosion, all the shouting of kids was ended and you could hear cries and people running to all sides. Some of the wounded were also running," he said.
ISAF does not comment on the nationalities of its casualties until the information has been released by their home nation. However police at the scene of the blast said four Canadian soldiers were killed and 10 wounded.
"Also 24 kids were wounded with four of them in a very critical condition," a district-level police official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The children were aged between about seven and 15, he said.
ISAF said its soldiers were evacuated to military hospitals for treatment. Four of the wounded children were badly hurt and were evacuated to a military hospital at Kandahar Airfield.
The Canadian military could not immediately be contacted for confirmation. Canada has 2,300 soldiers in Kandahar and they have been struck by several suicide attacks.
Nineteen Canadian soldiers are among more than 90 foreign troops who have died in hostile action in Afghanistan this year, which has seen the worst insurgency-linked violence since the Taliban were toppled in 2001.
Monday's attack was outside Kandahar city in an area where ISAF Sunday declared that a major offensive had succeeded. Operation Medusa was launched on September 2 to flush out Taliban who were entrenching themselves in Panjwayi.
NATO officials are preparing to ramp up reconstruction in the area as part of a new strategy to win over local residents.
The Taliban rose from the area in the early 1990s to take control of most of the country by 1996. They were removed from government by a US-led coalition in late 2001.
There has been an almost fourfold increase in suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan this year, according to ISAF figures.
The United Nations representative in Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, told reporters in Kabul Monday that 154 civilians were killed in suicide bombings in the country this year.
ISAF, which has 10,000 troops in southern Afghanistan, is seeking around 2,000 extra soldiers and more equipment to tackle the violence, which has been more virulent than expected.
Separately, police and Taliban rebels fought a two-hour gunbattle in Helmand province which neighbours Kandahar late Sunday, leaving 13 insurgents dead including a local commander and four wounded, police said.
The firefight erupted after residents of Awasay village in Girishk district asked police for help because of a heavy Taliban presence in the area, provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Mullahkhail told AFP.
