Latest suicide attack kills 9 in Afghan south

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Oct 13 (Reuters) A suicide attacker targeting a NATO convoy in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar killed eight civilians and a foreign soldier today.

The attack on the Kabul highway just outside the city is the latest in an increasing number of suicide bombings that have killed about 200 people this year, already the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001.

Police and NATO said several civilians and two soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force had been wounded in the blast near the turnoff to the airport, a major military base.

One soldier later died, NATO said in a statement.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef s aid its guerrillas had carried out the attack, saying several foreign soldiers had been killed.

The alliance also said late on Thursday that NATO and Afghan troops had killed 25 insurgents in neighbouring Uruzgan province on Wednesday in a battle after a bomb struck their patrol.

A civilian was killed in the crossfire and seven civilians and several Afghan soldiers wounded, NATO said in a statement.

There were no foreign casualties.

But on Wednesday, a US soldier died after falling out of a helicopter following an operation in southern Helmand province.

More than 2,500 people, 140 of them foreign soldiers, have died this year, which has seen a revival of the Taliban five years after a US-led invasion ousted its Islamist government.

REUTERS SP RK1744