Bombers hit Afghanistan ahead of major holy day

Kabul, Oct 21: A suicide bomber killed an Afghan soldier and wounded seven more in an eastern province bordering Pakistan yesterday, the army said.

The attack in Khost by a suicide bomber on foot came hours after an operation by US-led coalition forces and Afghan troops killed a militant and captured four in the same province.

Despite offensives by NATO since it took command of the war against the Taliban from US forces over recent weeks, violence has been mounting and attacks have occurred almost daily.

There have been several major bombings and clashes in recent days as the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan draws to a close ahead of the start of Eid al-Fitr on Monday, the most important celebration in the Islamic calendar.

Fighting this year is the worst it has been since a US-led coalition ousted the Taliban's strict Islamist government in 2001 and more than 3,000 people, including more than 150 foreign soldiers, have been killed in the violence.

Copying tactics from Iraq, the Taliban and other insurgents are increasingly targetting the poorer trained and equipped Afghan military and police, as well as provincial and district officials and other government workers.

CIVILIAN DEATHS MOUNT

In recent weeks, scores of civilians have been killed in a rising wave of suicide attacks.

NATO estimates more than 200 people have died in suicide bombings so far this year, compared with about 50-60 last year.

Yesterday, a suicide bomber killed several civilians, including two children, and a British marine in an attack on a NATO convoy in southern Helmand province, a major Taliban stronghold and the opium capital of the world's biggest producer.

Afghanistan's blossoming poppy production, estimated to jump 60 per cent this year by the United Nations, helps fund the insurgency and Afghan officials say neither the drugs industry nor the rebellion can ever be crushed without tackling both.

Tajikistan border guards shot dead two Afghan drug smugglers today and seized 200 kg of drugs, a border guards spokesman said in the capital, Dushanbe.

Drugs-related clashes on the rugged, 1,400-km Afghan-Tajik border are common.

NATO commanders in the field, including head of the 31,000-strong alliance force in Afghanistan British General David Richards, are calling for more troops.

The Netherlands will send a total of 330 soldiers to southern Afghanistan in the coming weeks, boosting its presence there to 1,730 troops, the government said today.

But France said it was reviewing its deployment of 200 commandos.

Speaking in Washington after meeting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie declined to confirm a French newspaper report Paris planned to pull its troops out of southern Afghanistan next year but said it was time to take a fresh look at the deployment.

Canada, which has a major force in the south in the Taliban's birthplace of Kandahar province and has taken heavy casualties, is increasing pressure on its NATO allies for more troops, saying it cannot maintain its 2,300-strong mission without more help.

Several European NATO members have troops in more peaceful parts of Afghanistan, but restrict the missions the soldiers can carry out or refuse to send them to the more dangerous south.

More than 40 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan.

REUTERS