Five U S troops wounded in Afghan blast

ASADABAD, Afghanistan, Apr 1 (Reuters) Five U S soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan today while, in a separate incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up in an attack on Canadian troops, military officials said.

No Canadian or Afghan army troops were hurt in the attack in Kandahar province but Afghan soldiers killed a man on a motorbike, mistaking him for another attacker, an Afghan commander said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the third suicide attack in three days. A Canadian soldier and at least seven passers-by were wounded in the earlier attacks.

Violence in Afghanistan has intensified in recent days since Taliban insurgents said they launched a spring offensive in their campaign to oust foreign troops and defeat the Western-backed government.

The U S troops were wounded while on patrol in the Peche valley of eastern Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan and the scene of repeated clashes between insurgents and U S and Afghan government troops.

A roadside bomb struck their armoured vehicle, U S military spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody said.

The five wounded men were evacuated to the main U S military base at Bagram, north of Kabul, he said. He did not know their condition.

Insurgents attacked the convoy after the blast and one suspected insurgent was detained, he added.

Four U S soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Kunar last month. Sixteen U S troops were killed in the province last June when insurgents shot down their helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

TALIBAN CLAIM A Taliban spokesman said Taliban fighters had carried out the third suicide attack in Kandahr in as many days.

Despite the rising violence, the United States is planning to trim its force of more than 18,000 troops in Afghanistan by several thousand, as NATO forces take over responsibilities in the dangerous south, and later the east.

NATO is capable of taking over peacekeeping duties across all of Afghanistan as early as August if member nations want, the alliance's top commander of operations said yesterday.

The spate of suicide attacks has unnerved public opinion over the planned move into more dangerous areas in several European NATO countries.

Canada has 2,300 soldiers in Kandahar, where it commands a multinational task force. As casualties have mounted some Canadians have begun questioning the mission and demanding a debate in parliament.

In a separate incident, the head of provincial council in the northeastern province of Takhar was killed by unidentified gunmen who raided his house today, an interior ministry official said. Sayed Sadiq, a former factional commander, was elected to the province's council in September.

Militants are not known to be active in the province and some residents speculated he might have been killed as a result of a factional feud.

The interior ministry said it was investigating.

REUTERS DKS BST1900