- A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers and wounded
three others Sunday as they patrolled southern Afghanistan " the deadliest
attack on American forces here in nearly two months, the U.S. military
said.
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- Militant assaults elsewhere killed a senior pro-government
Islamic leader and two Afghan policemen, as Taliban-led rebels step up
a campaign to subvert key Sept. 18 legislative elections. Seven U.S. soldiers
have been killed in Afghanistan during the past four days.
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- On the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, a roadside bomb
exploded near a U.S. Embassy convoy, wounding two American officials, an
embassy spokesman said.
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- "The vehicle was part of a convoy on routine embassy
business," spokesman Lou Fintor said, adding that the Americans suffered
minor injuries.
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- The blast is believed to be the first attack on U.S.
embassy officials in Kabul in months.
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- The blast that killed U.S. troops occurred in Zabul province's
Daychopan district, the military said in a statement. The three wounded
soldiers were hit by shrapnel and were in stable condition, the military
said.
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- "The unit was conducting offensive operations in
support of an ongoing mission to find and defeat enemy forces in the area
when the attack occurred," the statement said.
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- "The unit's mission is part of a much larger operation
to disrupt enemy forces and to thereby provide a safe environment for upcoming
September elections."
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- The statement quoted Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, the U.S.-led
coalition's operational commander, as saying the attack would "strengthen,
not weaken, the resolve" of the force.
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- Some 187 U.S. service members have been killed in and
around Afghanistan since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in late
2001 " including 64 during an upsurge of insurgent attacks in the
last six months that also have left about 1,000 others dead.
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- On Friday, a U.S. Marine was killed in a clash near Asadabad
in eastern Afghanistan, while a day earlier, a roadside bomb killed two
U.S. soldiers protecting road workers on a U.S.-funded project in southern
Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold.
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- U.S. officials have warned that fighting could escalate
ahead of the parliamentary and provincial assembly elections, seen as the
next step in building Afghanistan's democracy after a quarter-century of
civil strife and war.
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- In attacks elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded late Saturday
under a police vehicle also in Zabul province, killing two police officers,
said local government chief Rozi Khan.
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- In southern Kandahar province Sunday, gunmen riding a
motorbike shot dead cleric Mawlawi Abdullah, the latest in a string of
attacks on religious leaders who have openly condemned the Taliban and
other extremists.
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- Abdullah - a senior figure in the Islamic Ulama Council
- and a colleague were killed as they walked out of a mosque after praying
at dawn, Interior Ministry official Dad Mohammed Rasa said.
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- In the eastern province of Kunar, rebels ambushed two
tanker trucks hauling fuel to an American military base, burning the vehicles
but letting the drivers go, officials said.
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